2012

Guilds, Legendary Weapons, and other Goodies #GW2 #GuildWars2

I’ve been alternating with my guardian between doing Orr zones and lower level zones. I find Orr very bug-ridden lately, and actually a number of the regular zones are developing bugs that are quite frustrating in nature too. I was in the human starter with my mesmer alt when I happened upon a skillpoint that was broken – but it was only broken in the overflow, not on my actual server (Sanctum of Rall) so I left the overflow and was able to complete it.

Normally I can ignore a number of issues before they start to get to me. I have pretty good patience and I can wait it out. There’s a few issues that are getting me quite frustrated these days. Last night the game randomly went down without any explanation (for everyone, not just me) and while there was thankfully no roll back this time, things didn’t work properly when I returned. It wasn’t recognizing that I was doing any events with a guild mate, and there for no influence was being earned. I couldn’t stand down or represent any new guilds. Mail wasn’t working. The trade post was lagging. Just little things that made game play difficult.

I’ve been trying to stay on  a ‘main’ – mostly because one day, I want a legendary weapon, and if you look at the list of supplies required you’ll see that it really is best to stick with one character:

Each legendary weapon requires at least the following:

In addition to the above, the player must also gamble the following materials to obtain Mystic Clovers. One success results in a single Mystic Clover and 77 clovers are needed. The chances of success are currently unknown, therefore depending on the final chances, the recipe could require anywhere from 77 to 1,000 attempts.

That is the grocery list for ONE legendary item, and I would like at least two. A shield and a sword. I understand that this is the ‘end all be all’ of items in-game, and that it’s supposed to take a LONG time to achieve this, but still, eyeballing that list is daunting. Actually, only parts of it are.

Karma, over a million karma saved up. If karma was account bound instead of character unique, I wouldn’t have such a difficult time playing alts. In fact, why isn’t it account bound (dye too, for that matter). The 250 craft components doesn’t bother me that much, although the globs of ectoplasm will be difficult as those come from salvaging exotic pieces.

What does seem difficult (aside from the 120 gold) is the 500 WvWvW tokens. I’ve done world vs. world vs. world a handful of times now, putting in maybe 10 hours, and I’ve only earned FIVE of those tokens. 500 is an enormous amount if you’re on a server that perhaps doesn’t fair too well in PvP situations.

I’m also not a fan of the 77 random chance bits that players need to collect, listed at the end. I’ll do it, but it seems more of an annoyance than any skill required.

Discussing these things with my guild mates made me feel incredibly… lonely. I consider myself to be casual hardcore. A casual, with a lot of time to play. But I’m all for bettering my character. I enjoy being good at a game, knowing my class, and obtaining the gear and items that are required to do so. I don’t mind PUGs, and I alternate between exploration and discovery and simply getting things done. I take pride in having goals that include getting as much ‘done’ as I can. It felt like when I was discussing bettering my character and this type of ‘progress’ that I was completely alone, and I suppose in the end I’m more hardcore than casual. Keep in mind this is NOT bashing anyone in my amazing guild, I adore the Combat Wombats and everything they represent. I firmly believe that everyone has their own style and I embrace the fact that we’re all different. I wouldn’t pressure anyone to play “my way” if they didn’t want to. There’s been a bad connotation added over people who enjoy the “min/max” game, and I am one of those people who enjoy it, so I try to avoid speaking about it lest anyone suddenly decide that I too am some elite jerk unworthy of their time.

Anyhow, just a few of the thoughts bouncing around my head lately. I hope everyone had a great weekend, no matter where they found themselves! Happy gaming.

The Mines of Gloomingdeep (Revamped) #EverQuest

I was never a big fan of the mines of Gloomingdeep tutorial when it was implemented. I felt like it took forever to complete, the gear was not very good, and it didn’t actually teach me anything I needed to know about Norrath. I would normally skip the tutorial and head to Crescent Reach, which had a lot of very nice quests for level 1+. From there I’d go to whatever the lowest level hotzone was at the time.

So it was nice to see that the tutorial has been revamped, again. I was feeling a bit lost on my level 90 characters still so I created a magician. I’ve never played one before but I hear they’re great for solo play (or for ‘moloing’ which is a new term I’ve picked up from the forums). There are achievements now for listening to the NPCs drone on about maps, communication, and achievements. You can hire a mercenary while in the zone, which is great because right away you can start talking to someone that won’t ever answer you back.

The gear has been given a make over as well, and I found it better than the defiant items that drop within the zone. The quests are more detailed, and the new map system works very well. I still wish there was more information on what to do later on in the game, if you happen to have left around level 90, but it’s really not that difficult for me to figure out. I’m just a bit lonely seeing as no one I know plays any more (I’m trying to work on that).

I even managed to get an augment in the tutorial, complete with an explanation on how they work. You don’t need to place augments in bird baths any more, you just put the item on your mouse pointer and drop it onto the augment slot on your gear. Much better (imo). Over all things have been streamlined, but they’re still quite difficult, it’s still a game that doesn’t give anything to you on a silver platter.

I spent last night in North Kaladim harvesting mushrooms and bits for Kaladim Constitutional. Out of 300 combines, I managed to get from 273 to 281. I’ve got a ways to go still until I reach 300 in brewing but I’m looking forward to it. I had grand ideas of one day having 300 in all of my crafts, but in order for that to happen I would have to actually settle down and stick with a game. I have been contemplating doing that exact thing, I get tired of wandering some times, but we’ll have to see.

Anyhow. It’s been really nice to be back so far. Guilds are still recruiting, and with the 19th expansion only months away there are players returning all of the time. Not to mention the game is F2P, so if you’ve wanted to peek in on your characters and see how Norrath is doing, there really is no better time.

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

Another One Joins The Ranks #WoW

At the time of this post it’s 3 days, 16 hours, 35 minutes, and 56 seconds until Mists of Pandaria release. I decided that I should probably try to get my druid to 85. I’ve had the character for a very long time, but I had four other level 85 characters, and for some reason just couldn’t manage to stick with the druid long enough to level her. I’d get distracted by something else on another character, achievements, crafting, etc.

Once I hit 85 it was time to gear her up. What was the point with MOP just around the corner? Well, it’s just a personal preference of mine. Something I enjoy doing, too. So I took the lazy players method. I geared her up (to begin with) with player-crafted PvP gear, ilevel 377. My trinkets were holding me back from queuing for raids, but I was able to get into the heroic twilight dungeons. I purchased ilevel 397 wrist and feet (they’re sold for justice, and can be traded) and a cheap ilevel 359 weapon. I leveled up as feral but switched to balance and restoration even though I had never played a druid in a group or in either of those specs before.

Twilight dungeons were fairly easy, I’ve done them numerous times before and even though I was at the absolute bottom of every parse, I knew it was 100% due to my gear. The dungeons are great for loot and even for the quests offered within the zone. After running each one once, I was able to boost my ilevel to 372, and get rid of the majority of my pvp gear. This means I can queue for raids now, which I’ll be doing later tonight. There’s no way I wanted to experience LFRaid at 1am on a Thursday night. Things should be much better on a Friday night. This I’ve learned the hard way.

That brings the totals of my characters to: 85 priest (discipline/shadow), 85 shaman (enhancement/restoration), 85 warlock (Affliction/Destruction), and 85 paladin (retribution/holy). The druid doesn’t have a craft yet, and I’ll probably try to max that out before too long, simply because it’s a pleasure to have one of everything.

Aside from that bit of excitement, the guild I run ‘Dragon Flight’ also managed to inch our way to level 10. This means we can now purchase the heirloom cloaks which is a pretty big deal for us. Without the weekly caps, and with a large increase in earned experience things have been moving along quite well. It wasn’t that long ago that we were level 5, and had been for quite some time. I have grand hopes of eventually making it to level 25, but 10 is a good solid start for a guild of only 3 people.

I’m excited about MOP. Everyone has their own personal opinions about the game of course, but it’s got a number of aspects that appeal to me, and it meshes well with the other games that I play. I hope everyone has an amazing weekend, and happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Stop Telling Me I Can’t Go Home #EverQuest #EQ

I’ve been spending a lot of time in EverQuest this week, satisfying my cravings for nostalgia and a game that doesn’t just hand me everything on a silver platter. At first I thought I would jump right back in with my level 90s because it wasn’t that long ago that I was playing regularly, but once I was actually in game (and after I had set my hotbars up, I had to re-install the game once I formatted my PC) I was at a complete loss on what to do.

Now, SOE actually addresses this issue for the majority of returning players. When you enter the game you receive a precious little book that belongs to a chain of quests that are a part of the ‘Hero’s Journey’. These quests will point you in the right direction from levels 1 to 85 – and there they stop. So it’s great for lower levels returning, or for making a new character, but for me at level 90 all it said was go play in House of Thule. I (thankfully) remembered where that was, but HoT is almost 2 expansions old now, and I was hoping to explore the latest expansion.

That didn’t mean there was absolutely nothing for me to do, there always is, in EverQuest. I took a look at my crafting skills and noticed that I was working on brewing previously. I’m 300/300 in Baking, Jewel crafting, and Tailoring, but only 250-270 in the other crafting disciplines. I headed to Abysmal Sea which is my crafting zone of choice, and set to work making a handful of drinks.

Crafting in EQ1 is just as annoying as it always has been. You lose materials whether you fail or succeed a combine and those skill ups are as rare as can be. With over 200 combines I managed to inch my crafting from 263 brewing to 272 and then I ran out of materials. I’ll have to head to Kaladim so I can gather more mushrooms before too long. The broker was in a sad state, but that also has to do with the fact that the game was down for 7 hours due to a patch. At this moment you’re still required to be online in order to perform sales, and a lot of people leave their characters up AFK while they’re at work. I suppose that’s one of the best changes coming in the 19th expansion due later this year.

Once I ran out of crafting materials I decided to take a peek at the new player experience. The Mines of Gloomingdeep have been remodeled, new players are given more explanation and story behind why they are trapped within. There are achievements for completing more than just the basics to the tutorial, and there are more NPC within the mines. You can hire a mercenary which is always a great idea especially since at those levels they are completely free of cost. I created a Vah Shir shaman, hired myself a tank, and was set. Forum posts indicate that any class combination is able to level up to around 60-65 with a tank mercenary, so I wanted to see if that theory was true.

I get tired of the comments that say you can never return to your ‘home’ MMO. Yes, games have changed and evolved over time, but so have we. Personally, EQ still scratches an itch that a lot of other games just don’t touch. I feel a sense of pride in leveling, in crafting, in pretty much everything. Some things are archaic, but I think there’s room for a game like that, perhaps even a niche demand.

If it’s any indication, EQ is still doing incredibly well for its age. There were over 400 people on my one server last night (and there are many servers still) and while it may not be the millions we see in some games, for a 13 year old MMO I’m just tickled that it’s still being developed, and not shutting down.

Vanguard to Get New Forums – Save Your Old Favorite Posts! #VGD #Vanguard

Have a favorite crafting guide, or a diplomacy walk through that you use all of the time on the official Vanguard forums? Well you’ll want to make sure you head over and save that information some place, as SOE is revamping the current forums.

We are pleased to inform you that we will soon be switching to new forums!

As many of you may have noticed, the current forums have experienced several ups and downs over the past couple of years. We have been searching for a new solution over the past few months and have finally found one that is a vast improvement over the current forums. Vanguard is the first live game to see the new forums, which we’ve been using and testing with the PlanetSide 2 Beta community!

Within the next week or two, we will switch the Vanguard forums over to the new forum software.  When this occurs, the forums will start off completely fresh. Unfortunately, the new architecture means that we are unable to transfer any old posts over to the new forums. If you have any favorite posts that you wish to keep, please copy them to a safe place as soon as possible!

When the forum transition occurs, we will give you at least 24 hours notice.

Feel free to ask questions if you have them and we’ll do our best to answer!

Zatozia the Torturess
Community Relations Manager

I’m excited about this process and feel that a lot of the information has become outdated over time, so a nice fresh start now that the game has gone Free to Play is exactly what’s needed.