2013

Shadow of Fear #EverQuest

stargrace April 17, 2013 2Comments

Shadow of Fear launch today, the second part of Rain of Fear, the latest EverQuest expansion. This second half of expansion goodness brings a few new zones, missions, and raids to the table along with new spells and alternate advancement. Since my enchanter is only level 93 there’s not a lot I can do with this latest update yet, but it won’t be long before I’m in the midst of it all (I believe around level 95 is when most things will come into play).

That doesn’t mean I’m not excited though, all of my friends and their level 100 characters will certainly be exploring the new areas that will be cram packed with other adventurers. I’m excited to see what will affect me. The new spells and aa in specific. I wish I could have gotten closer to 100 while I had the time, but that’s alright, I’ll get there eventually.

I’ve been having loads of fun playing EverQuest lately (as you can tell by my blog posts). I’m really glad I’ve returned. The game is still hard, and some classes are insanely over powered at the later levels (berserker decap and ranger headshot I’m looking at you) making it seem like my class is utterly worthless, but that’s alright, I just keep playing.

I’m not sure what else I want to play these days. I’ve always been a nomadic gamer and it seems a bit weird to only be focusing on one MMO. I’ve all but given up on Wurm Only, for a few reasons but the biggest reason being that I felt coerced into play because there were sever repercussions. If you don’t log in every single day, your animals / buildings / items suffer decay, and waste away. After playing for so long I disliked that penned in feeling, that feeling that I was going to actually lose my time invested if I wandered to another game. I LOVE the basics of Wurm, the creation process, the terraforming, all of it is amazing – but I don’t like being punished for not being there 24/7. I think I’ve finally broken free from that painful cycle.

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

Fabled Mobs in Plane of Earth #EverQuest

stargrace April 16, 2013 1Comment

Ah, plane of Earth. Fabled are still in game, so Oger and I headed over to level my ranger up a bit, and to camp the fabled mob that drops her pet weapon. She can’t equip it until level 75, but at least she’ll have it for when she’s ready. Speaking of, the ranger has been doing a good amount of leveling lately, she started off the weekend around level 43, but she’s now sitting comfortably at 70 thanks to Oger. The first aa I picked up was endless quiver, which basically allows me to use 1 arrow of any type, forever. So I picked the best arrow in the game currently and have one of them in my ammo slot. I’ve also started working on headshot, which is an incredibly handy aa while soloing (or powerleveling others).

I finished my first EverQuest collections. I was a bit disappointed with them honestly. You have a choice between aa or experience, and both are pretty poor rewards. At 60 the aa was a single one. At 93 it’s 6. The experience also barely makes a dent. There’s no neat house rewards, although you can get an augment for completing them all. If you like to complete achievements then I would suggest checking out the broker for good deals (there’s usually loads of shinies for sale) but other wise you can roam through the Rain of Fear zones invis and pick them up. Just be careful for undead or named.

The enchanter is almost 94, but I’ve had a yearning to play the necromancer as of late. Probably just because I get frustrated with the low dps the enchanter provides, and unless crowd control is desired she doesn’t actually DO a whole heck of a lot. Sure, I can buff others, but as far as actual group contribution, I feel like she falls behind. Still, it is my favorite character to play and I do have other things to work on with her (ie: prayer shawl 2.0) so I should get going on that some time.

Things are still going very well, over all. The second part of Rain of Fear should be releasing soon, and I’m excited about that. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Ding 92, and Upgrading Gear #EverQuest

stargrace April 11, 2013 0Comment

Last night was awesome. I realize this is a screen shot of me in my stylin’ bunny hat, but I had so much fun last night I forgot to take a single screen shot. Woops.

It started off with leveling in the Feerrott. Oger is closing in on his first 1,000 aa. He’ll need several thousand in order to tank properly so he has level locked in the mean time (putting 100% experience into aa). I managed to sneak my way to level 92 doing that which is pretty great because the mobs are mostly light blue with a few dark blue. That also means we killed a lot. From there we decided to do some Rain of Fear missions, which I was excited about because I’ve never done them before. Oger was able to come with us even at level 85 because there’s a 15 level gap allowed for tasks (missions). Our first mission was really simple, I don’t remember what it was called but it involved some pigs, and a giant blob. It was probably the fastest mission I’ve done. A good chunk of experience and a handful of aa for completion, and we decided to go to Crystal Caverns. I wasn’t sure why until we killed two named deep within.

The first one dropped a tunic pattern to create T1 RoF gear. This gear can be worn at 92 which pretty much allows you to skip VoA all together. T1 patterns can also be traded, and they sell in the bazaar for 100,000 plat, so I didn’t want to purchase one. I don’t have that much money any more after my crafting experiments.

I was so incredibly excited. I had purchased the legs earlier on in the evening as a treat for dinging 92, and the robe is fantastic with a clickie that returns mana to my group. From there we did a few more instances, I earned a new ring, I purchased a few cheaper pieces of gear from the bazaar, and finally we ended the night with an 11th anniversary group mission that rewarded me with a caster augment. One of my friends, Xoxox also gave me the T1 hat and boot pattern, so after a few hours of being 92 I’m only missing wrist and gloves.

I think a good time was had by all. I’m looking forward to exploring more of RoF, the second part of the expansion launches on April 17th I believe, so people should be busy exploring the new parts then. I still also need to complete a bit of VoA, I need the language at least.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself. You can find me in EverQuest these days, as Kameeko on the Drinal server. Feel free to say hello!

Ding 91, Only 9 More to go! #EverQuest

stargrace April 9, 2013 0Comment

Last night we went back to the Demiplane of Blood and finished off the mob that was giving us troubles, and then we attempted Mayong who seems to show up some place in every expansion. Sadly our little group of three was not able to defeat him this time, but maybe next time. We did manage to ease him down to approximately 30% but a pack of wild bats spawned and just absolutely ate my enchanter before I could cast a single root on them. Fun times, none the less.

Aside from attempting Mayong I did manage to ding 91 on my enchanter! That makes her my highest EverQuest character, with only 9 more levels to try to obtain before I hit the current level cap of 100. The last time I dinged 90 was right before Veil of Alaris came out so I barely enjoyed any time at the cap before it was raised to 95. I’m hoping I can make it to 100 before the next expansion rolls around but honestly we’ll just have to see.

I did head off to pick up my spells, they’re vendor sold at rank one without any prerequisites, and at rank 2 you’re required to do tasks to earn them. Rank 3 are raid spells. I haven’t actually explored the expansion much, chances are I can’t handle killing anything in there but we shall see.

Speaking of killing, I did head to Brell’s Rest yesterday to work on my prayer shawl 2.0 – I managed the very first combine. There are many more to go. The enchanter is not exactly the sturdiest of characters to play (which is probably why there are so few of them and why they have to convince others to play with them by giving them experience bonus auras) but never the less she is my favorite character.

Oger is now level 84, just a smidge away from being able to task add with level 100 characters, which should help experience go a bit faster. Apparently we’re supposed to get to 92 so that we can wear T1 gear from Rain of Fear, which is far beyond what we’re currently wearing (House of Thule).

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

Anniversary Tasks Galore #EverQuest

stargrace April 8, 2013 0Comment

It’s anniversary time in EverQuest and has been for almost a month now. That means there are fabled mobs in game, some easier to defeat than others. Some more farmed than others. For the fifth year and upwards there are anniversary tasks, and Zam has a great write up about them. Yesterday I spent the majority of my day working through the 5th and 6th year tasks, having already completed the 11th year raid task (it gives a really nice augment). The 5th and 6th tasks are both collection quests, the first one dealing with old world zones, and the 6th dealing with Kunark. You basically run all over collecting special bits and combining them in a container. I’ve also been hunting down the Bristlebane Party Machine, which travels through various zones once an hour. You get a flag and there are a lot of different locations, so it takes some time to complete this one.

Once that was completed, Elte, Oger, and myself headed to the Feerrott to try to gain some experience. Xoxox is Elte’s berserker and is quite familiar with the zone so we dug ourselves a little niche farming undead gorillas in a corner of the zone. Time flew by and before we knew it Oger had leveled from 80 to 82, and my enchanter is most of the way through 90. There’s still a long way to go before I reach level 100 (the current cap) but I’m working towards it.

It was a great time, and reminded me about what I love with these sorts of games. I enjoy sitting in a corner pulling mobs to the group and wondering if we can handle the adds we’ve gotten. Thankfully since I play an enchanter there was no real risk of dying, but it was still a lot of fun and I think everyone had a good time while we chattered in vent. Once Oger hits 85 we can all complete task adds together and that will help everyone level up even quicker.

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