October 2012

November means NaNoWriMo – And the 4th Annual Gamers Secret Santa!

It’s that time of year again! This will be my 5th year participating in NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month for those who have never heard of it before) and that means that the time I would normally spend writing a daily blog post will be going towards making my word goal for each day. The ‘goal’ of NaNoWriMo is to push out a 50,000 word novel in the month of November, stretching your creative mind to its limit. You can also add me as a buddy if you’re attempting NaNo this year, and we can help motivate one another!

Each year I attempt to write a new genre, and this year will be the hardest yet (personally speaking).

  • 2012 – Mystery /Thriller
  • 2011 – Erotica
  • 2010 – Fiction
  • 2009 – Fantasy
  • 2008 – Autobiography

November also means that very soon I will start posting details to the 2012 Gamers Secret Santa. I should be posting details on November 9th, and people will have until December 1st to decide whether or not they want to register. This will be the 4th year I’ve run the event, and I’m really looking forward to it (I do every year).

I’ll try to keep writing on MmoQuests as often as possible, but if you see me go silent, well. Those are the reasons! As always you can follow me on twitter: @stargrace or you can find me on G+ or even facebook. I hope everyone has a great November! Happy gaming, or writing, or whatever you find yourself doing!

Krono Goes Live in EQ2 – Thoughts? #EQ2

Krono went live yesterday on EQ2 and was met with mixed feelings. The majority of people I heard from don’t mind the idea of krono, but are utterly against the UI that was implemented and sits at the bottom of the persona window with a ‘buy’ button. Taunting you.  Many of the video explanations from SOE Live re: krono mention that there are two types of people who will use krono. Those who want plat and are willing to spend $18 to obtain it in a way that doesn’t break any rules, and those who want a subscription but would rather purchase it in-game with plat that they have to spare. I fall into the later category, and not for myself but to get my friends into game. So yesterday I purchased two krono and promptly gave them to a friend and said “here, log into game, you have 2 months of gold subscription” – to which they were incredibly grateful. This is perfect for me because the best way to keep me playing is to get my friends playing. Now we have 2 months to raise enough money to purchase another krono, and the prices on Antonia Bayle are not too bad.

Of course all of that is subject to change. It’s a new item, the market isn’t steady. I’ll be pleased if it hovers anywhere from 500 plat to 1,000 plat. Any higher and I’ll simply purchase a walmart SC card from a reputable player (there are many on Antonia Bayle) for 650 plat and end up with 500 extra SC from that as well.

Of course there were issues. Even after consuming the two krono my friends all-access account doesn’t actually mention that it’s been extended or how long it lasts, so he had to send in a petition. The details of that are still being worked out. The krono itself had issues in-game and kept vanishing from the broker but not actually vanishing. It was frustrating. The marketplace also experienced issues yesterday, but I know that everything will be up and running properly before too long, it just takes time.

What do you think of these new krono? For now they’re only accepted in EQ2 – but you CAN use them to extend your all access pass (access to all of SOEs games) which gives you a savings. Keep in mind that in order for this to work you must already have an all-access pass. Then you use the krono to extend your current subscription (whichever that may be, all access or regular EQ2 access). Any ‘gifted’ or ‘free’ time on your account is used up before the next credit card charge, so you can continue to add krono to the account when you’ve got one, and leave the credit card as a back up resource.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

A Productive Weekend #EQ2 #EverQuest2

Bonus experience weekends, how I love you. I didn’t spend as much time working on my characters as I would have liked (mostly because I was playing GW2 halloween events) but I did manage to get quite a bit done.

  • Shadowknight leveled from 90-92 adventuring
  • Shadowknight leveled from 90-92 sage
  • Dirge leveled from 250aa to 280

That was all I had time for, but I was pretty pleased with even that much. I went back to my favorite leveling spots because I was tired of having to fight the crowd in public zones, and I’m glad that I did. I still completed what I set out to do and I had a nice relaxing time of it instead of having to fight with other players. As soon as bonus experience gets turned on some players go crazy.

I have three more crafters that are still sitting at level 90 instead of 92, but it shouldn’t take any effort at all to bring them to 92. I have been trying to stagger the leveling so I don’t get completely burnt out.

How did you spend your bonus xp weekend? Let me know in comments! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Halloween in Guild Wars 2 #GW2

I love in-game holiday events, so when friends in Combat Wombat started talking about the Guild Wars 2 Halloween events, I decided I should log in and peek around. Aside from the horrible mad clock tower (great design, but I just can’t complete it no matter how hard I try) I had a fun time, and right now I’m waiting in Lion’s Arch for the final event that is supposed to happen in 2 hours or so. I’m hoping the servers stay alive, and the lag isn’t too bad, and that the event goes off without a hitch. We’ll see how that turns out.

I really enjoyed the scavenger hunt, and the item I got from it was actually an upgrade. I spent a lot of time playing as a villager or lunatic in one of the events too, and that was great. I had less fun in the pvp rumble type zone, but it could be just because I wasn’t on a winning team. Losing over and over is no fun for anyone. The labyrinth was also great fun, and I spent a few hours  gathering trick-or-treat bags and candy corn for achievements. I’m only missing the clockwork tower one now, and any that have yet to release. I gave up on the tower after an hour of bouncing up and around charr and norn getting stuck on every little nook and cranny that I couldn’t even see.

I did try to obtain the mad king chests to get appearance gear, and I did spend 900 gems unlocking my saved up Lion’s chests to try to get items to trade in for those mad king chests. I didn’t get anything useful, and I didn’t get any of the halloween appearance gear even after doing combines in the mythical forge 10x. After that I gave up.

Anyone else have any luck? Let me know in comments! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Joining a Guild and Other Goodies #EQ #EverQuest

My apologies for the lack luster screen shot this morning, but I actually forgot to take a better one, so this was all I had in my folder, hehe.

I have been playing EverQuest off and on for some time now, and last night I decided to make some pretty big changes. Well, big for me in any case. The first thing I did was – apply to a guild. That’s right, even though I’ve been in a personal guild for years now I decided that if I really wanted to get back into EverQuest good and proper, the first thing I should do is find others to play with, or at least others to talk to. I checked out the guild lobby and noticed a few family guilds recruiting, and I also submitted an application to the boards. It wasn’t long before I found myself speaking to a member from Pak’Cafan, and before I knew it I had applied.

Once that step was taken care of, I headed out to a group in a zone I had never been in before. It was fun, but the experience was lack luster because we barely killed anything and spent more time debating how to pull a named than anything else. This may annoy some people, but I was quite happy. It reminded me of how EverQuest is played. You spend a lot of time talking and getting to know your group mates. When you are LFG again you tend to remember who you were with previously because of this. People are not just randoms who have joined your group for a few minutes, but folks that you’ve had discussions with, and shared many wipes with. Well, hopefully not too many wipes.

Anyhow, the group was fun and I had a good time getting back into the swing of things. I spent the remainder of my evening in Halas, harvesting mushrooms so that I can continue working up my brewing (286 and counting). There was one time during the evening where I was discouraged because my enchanter was having a very difficult time in Veil of Alaris trying to charm solo. My charm only works up to level 89, even though I am level 90. Most of the encounters in the beginner zones are also higher than 90. In the end I decided to stay determined. There’s a LOT to do in EverQuest and just because I’m not quite ready to run out and start soloing the current expansion (until Rain of Fear goes live next month) doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for me to do anything. House of Thule is still a great expansion to play in, and even the expansion before that. There are shrouds that I can use to do older content and SOE added a ‘heroes journey’ which grants achievements for completing zones like Crescent Reach and other 1-85 zones. I haven’t done any of that yet, especially not on my ancient enchanter (CR came out well after I created my enchanter) so there’s a lot to explore.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself! If you happen to pop back into EverQuest you can find me as Kameeko on the Drinal server. Be sure to say hello!

Nomadic Gamer