October 2012

Trips Down Memory Lane #EQ2 #EverQuest2

stargrace October 24, 2012 1 Comment

One of my absolute favorite things to do in EQ2 (well, in any game I suppose) is to travel through old zones doing old content. In EQ2 this is very easy to do with the self mentor system (which I adore, by the way) so that no matter what level I am, I can always go back to old content.

Last night I was looking through my defiler’s achievements (my current ‘main’) when I noticed that she had never completed Halls of Seeing before. So of course I decided to pay Venekor a visit and see how he was doing. The mobs in the zone varied from 72+ so I mentored down to 80 which would give me the ability to still obtain loot and aa from encounters. I do have my trusty shadowknight mercenary (nothing fancy, just the basic one that you can get from cities) and off I went.

One nice thing about HoS is that all of the loot is lore attuneable, which means you can sell it on the broker. I earned a handful of gear, some masters, and I had an absolute blast. I inched my way to 299 aa and 70% through by the time the evening was done – but of course it wasn’t just Venekor that I paid a visit to.

I also headed to Steamfont, and from there Klak’anon and paid a visit to the Clockwork Menace. The raid was a LOT easier than I remembered it being back when I was actually raiding current-tier content. You’ve basically got 8 minutes from start to finish, and I felt that I had a lot left over.

There was one more stop to make before I called it a night. The deserted Isle of Refuge, where Darathar resides. This really took me down memory lane. The Isle of Refuge used to be where you would start your character in EQ2. I remember it took me a WEEK to get my templar to level 7 when EQ2 first released. Back then I was still playing EQ1 pretty heavily, and I had no inclination to switch games at all. Little did I know.

The Isle of Refuge has since been removed as a starting point, in order to let the newer zones shine. So Darathar has it all to himself, and his minions. Darathar was also my first ‘real’ EQ2 raid. I remember so many details about that first raid. We stood in the water to avoid getting kicked. I was the lowest level character there. We were raiding well before fabled were ever added to the game, the Prismatic 1.0 (as it’s called these days) was legendary. I remember the script for Darathar, it has been tweaked over the years. He used to fly away and return, stunning the raid three times. Now he stays put on the ground. I raided with an Australian guild on the Najena server, and it was awesome. I miss it.

So that’s why I continue to go back to these older zones. The content holds strong memories for me. Plus, it was a really nice way to earn some aa.

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

More For EQ2 From SOE Live #SOELive #EQ2

stargrace October 20, 2012 1 Comment

More news trickled out yesterday at SOE Live and I thought I’d post it below with a few comments here and there. I’m commenting on notes that Feldon has written up on EQ2wire, as he live blogged the panels.

• If you buy Chains of Eternity, you get an item you can claim 2 per account (not 1 per character) that if you are level 90 it dings you to 280AAs. [A lot of people are upset about this, and a lot of people are happy. I don’t think grinding 280aa takes any skill and most people simply grind older zones and don’t actually obtain AA the way they were ‘meant’ to be obtained. The 280AA cap in order to reach level 92 is steep for people who have been away from game, and unless they remove that requirement – OR – use this item, I can see people not returning. Honestly, if someone doesn’t want to use it, they don’t have to. I don’t personally see it as game breaking.]
• The addition of incremental spells. These are new abilities that have stages. It was a bit confusing but basically the more you cast a spell, it will enable you to eventually cast a new bigger / better spell. Perhaps completely different than the spell you had been casting to begin with. [Sounds neat, and I wonder if the quality of the spell you’re casting affects the result of the new spell (ie: adept, mastercrafted etc).]
• Traderskillers are getting prestige abilities, and tradeskill AA will be their own point system now and not tied to the adventuring total AA. They’re also adding mass production, but no idea if this will be for everything, or only certain items, or consumables, or what. Will wait to hear more information. [VERY happy to hear this]
• Spirit Stones. Items that grow in power when you do what it says on them (ie: the more you heal your allies, the more passive abilities the stone gains). These sound neat, like a new type of adornment.

Of course there’s a lot of content coming, two massive overland zones, a bunch of dungeons, raids, solo and group content. Beta apparently starts on Monday, and a tentative release date has been set for November 13th (that seems quite soon, so I would expect this to change). Are you excited about the expansion? The last few have been slightly lack luster for me, and I haven’t decided quite yet how I feel about this one. The EQ expansion on the other hand, I am VERY excited about.

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

Key From the Keynotes (For Me) #EQ2 #SOELive

stargrace October 19, 2012 2 Comments

Tonight was the first keynote at SOE Live (Fan Faire Forever!) and while there wasn’t a whole lot of detail about the games that I’m most interested in, there were some aspects I thought I’d talk about.

To start it off, I found it amusing that John Smedley talked about how non-instanced housing is going to be the next big thing at DCUO and he asked the crowd when the last time that was even done (and he mentioned SWG) – uhms. Vanguard has non-instanced housing. I know it may be difficult to try to remember all of your companies games, but at least try. Now, the interesting points

• Live casting games is a big deal, and getting bigger. SOE is going to add a TwitchTV client into their games (starting with Planetside 2 I believe, November 1st). [I think this is a great idea, why not show off your games as much as you can, and let the players do it for you.]
• EQ2 Chains of Eternity is tentatively scheduled for November 13th. [That seems VERY early, so I’m not expecting it to actually release then. Is there even a beta for it yet? Maybe they’re not having one this year.]
• EQ Rain of Fear is releasing November 28th [About what I expected]
• Krono are being introduced October 29th! [If you’re familiar with Plex, you’ll know how krono work. They’re in-game virtual items that you can use to pay for a 30 day subscription to the game. You can also put them on the broker and sell them to other players. I am VERY excited about this because as it is now players just have to trust one another when selling game cards. It’s too easy to get a fake time code, and easy to not get paid for a valid one. This will help that, I hope. Of course making them into an in-game item comes with issues like account thefts, hacks, etc.]
• EQNext is being completely re-done. SOE was not pleased with where it was headed, so they’ve completely scrapped everything they did, and are redoing the game into a sandbox of measures no one has seen before. They should have something to show at next years SOE Live, but we’ll just have to wait and see. [A LOT of people were upset about this announcement, but for some reason, not me. I’m pleased they honestly told us what was up, point blank, and we’ll just see where it goes from there].
• Wizardry Online beta opens October 29th. [I’m excited about this game. I think a nice hardcore game with permadeath has a niche market that very few games take part of these days, and there’s room for it.]
• SOE is partnering with Runewaker (the folks who made Runes of Magic) and bringing us all Dragon’s Prophet in 2013. [I have heard nothing about this game, but they showed a lot of videos and it looked neat. Unique? Not sure.]
• Planetside 2 releasing November 20th [Been in the beta for this one a while now, but it’s not something that’s my ‘usual’ type of game. Some people are excited, some people are saying it’s way too soon.]

And there you have it. The keynotes addressing EQ/EQ2 are tomorrow, they should go into more detail about each expansion and the future of both games, which I’m looking forward to hearing about. I may not always agree with what any gaming company does, but I do understand that as time passes games need to change along with it. It’s not always change for the best or even change for the better, but at least they’re trying.

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