Nomadic Gamer

2017

Gaming

EQ – Got No Time for That (but oh well)

stargrace 1Comment

It never fails, I tell myself that I just don’t have the time to dedicate to a game like EverQuest, and then before I know it I’m logging in and creating a character. Nostalgia, it’s powerful.

I know I don’t have the time to play, but I do have an hour every night after my Son goes to sleep and before I have to get some sleep myself. I typically use that time to make a blog post or two and post date it to the next day, and then with whatever is left over I get some gaming in. Is that enough to play EverQuest?

Well, on a regular server, maybe. On a progression server where experience is greatly decreased, especially in a game like EverQuest, I’m probably crazy to be trying. Yet that’s where I found myself for a portion of my free time.

It’s Memorial Day weekend in the United States, so there’s bonus experience going on. It runs until Tuesday and I’m going to miss it once it ends. I created a magician. A class I’ve never really played before that I know is “easy mode” as far as leveling goes. There are a LOT of magicians out there. I mean, a ton. So many. The ground is littered with magician corpses.

After getting my gnome to level 3 I started thinking to myself that a shadowknight might be fun. That’s something else I tend to do, I’m unable to settle on a single class to play so I get a handful of characters to level 3 and then end up quitting.

I got a shadowknight to level 3 and then thought to myself “what am I doing!” I don’t have time to level a magician up let alone a tank! So of course I did the next logical thing. I went back to the magician. She’s now level 5.

Will I stick with it?

Maybe.

I love EverQuest. I love the excitement that comes with playing on a progression server. I love how busy they are, and watching chat channels fly by. I love the community and the fuzzy feelings I get when I think about that time in my life. I’ll keep playing it for as long as I can but chances are that may not be very long at all. I do plan on enjoying every second of it while I can though.

You can find me on the latest progression server as Stargrace (gnome magician) or if I’ve changed my mind by then (again) you may find me there as Quail (dark elf shadowknight). Either way, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Gaming

Goblin Leader Bites the Dust

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Yesterday was another server event, this time we gathered together to take down the notorious Goblin Leader. Not as big of an event as say, a drake, but we still had a pretty good crowd, with 40+ people showing up. There were body drops from the Goblin Leader, as well as items donated from staff and players.

Now, one (small) issue I have with these events is that if someone wins something they don’t particularly want, they can pass, and have a chance at something better. The downside to this of course is that you may not win anything at all or you might get incredibly lucky and have your name drawn again on the uber_item_101 that you wanted. The problem I have is that sometimes the items being rolled on really suck (this is IMO, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure and what have you) and there are still good items waiting to be rolled on, so staff allows us to pass.

I wish there was no option to pass. If you win something, be thankful you won, and accept it – or give it away or trade it away, or decline – but that removes you from future drawings from that event. I think it should be up to players to make a deal or figure out what they want to do with their wins.

See the problem is sometimes the loot REALLY sucks, like, goblin meat. There’s nothing special about it, regular goblins drop it, it’s not used in anything fancy. Of course this is the item that I “won” so I passed it. So did a few other people. It takes time to pass until someone finally shrugs their shoulders and says OK fine I’ll accept it, or auto accepts because they’re not actually present. If you get picked to win something, that should be it. Take it upon yourself to handle how you deal with your win. It’s only logical that (most) people will pass on things that are “useless” if there are “better” things in the draw. I say this because again, one man’s treasure.

Trade it, give it away, destroy it, whatever. It doesn’t matter. When your name is drawn for a raffle item that should be the item you win (or don’t win). So far I’ve won some goblin meat and a canopy bed. Both of which I passed on because there were better items (like a drake set, remember I still don’t have that sort of armour) further down the list.

Anyway. That all being said, the event went pretty smooth and people were happy. The smaller gatherings seem to work out well, the staff and organizers (as always) did a fantastic job. We each got to pick items from a chest afterward (two chests). I got a weapon smithing potion, and a chunk of rift wood. Ogur got a rare piece of iron (43ql) and a chunk of rift wood which he gave to me. We all also got ourselves some Goblin Leader blood which is used to create mining potions.

Afterward I logged Zuca in to check on my sales, and ported her home to help work on the mine tunnel I have ongoing. Moumix was helping me reinforce the tunnel but he hasn’t been around for a month or so, so I’ve slowly been working on it myself. I’ve got most of the tunnel mined two wide, and am working on getting it three wide, and reinforcing the entire length of it. Slow progress, but hey it’s a nice project. I love having a tunnel from Quail Keep to Quail Ridge, saves me a trip through the steppe.

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

Gaming

Agnarr – The Latest Progression Server

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I love progression servers and I must not be alone in that. EverQuest has opened up their latest – Agnarr – and it’s a Planes of Power progression server, which means that it will unlock content slowly up to the Planes of Power expansion and then stop. Well, sort of stops. They’re also going to release Legacy of Ykesha and Lost Dungeons of Norrath, but neither of those expansions raise the level cap from 65.

Daybreak is also holding a contest where you can win some neat stuff, details are on this post here and if you’re interested in the Agnarr FAQ you can find that here too. Content unlocks every 12 weeks. It’s also a ‘true box’ server, which means you can only play one account from your PC – they’re trying to encourage grouping.

Will I play?

Well. You need to have an active subscription to play on the timelocked progression servers, and I’m not sure how much of my subscription I have left (I’ll have to look into it). I’m also not sure how much time I can actually dedicate to playing EQ – it’s a time intensive game where you’ll want to group up most of the time to make the most of your time.

That being said, I’ll probably look into it just because of nostalgia and see if I can get anywhere.

Gaming

Gwent – Open Beta

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I’ve never played The Witcher before, but I know a lot of people who have and who enjoy it a huge amount. Apparently within the game there’s a card game called Gwent, and now it’s a real card game that you can play. I love these types of games so when I heard it was going into Open Beta and anyone could try it out, I decided to jump on it. I downloaded it from GOG (pretty easy to set up) and it’s almost a 2gb download but it went smooth. You can find me on GOG as Stargrace if you’re looking to add friends for matches.

The game is pretty easy to get into (at least the basics). I haven’t done any deck building nor do I know what all of the ore etc rewards are for that I keep getting, but the basics are simple.

You have 11 cards. They have to last you at least 2 wins, or a total of three rounds, whichever happens first. You need to score more points than your opponent in order to win that round. The round ends when you either pass (as does your opponent) or when you run out of cards and are forced to pass.

There’s a few different decks, each with different abilities. There’s a leader card that can only be played once in any given game, and weather cards that can affect the board. You can trade cards in at the beginning of the round for some different ones, and it basically plays the same as any other virtual card game out there. Strategy comes into play when you’re running low on cards. Do you eat a loss one round so you can save cards for the next one and potentially win, or do you want to make your opponent run out of cards first.

The tutorial does an excellent job of guiding you through the initial game and I imagine if you’ve ever played the game in The Witcher you’ll already be pretty familiar with it. If you’ve ever played any other types of card games like this (Magic The Gathering, Legends of Norrath, heck even Harthstone) you’ll be familiar with the basics and you’ll be able to pick the rest up. I’m not sure how long the open beta lasts for, but I had a good evening playing vs. a few friends and streaming it over on Mixer. You can catch the VOD replay for the next 14 days (just scroll down my channel to where it says previous broadcasts) before they’re taken down.

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

Gaming

Mixer – The New Beam

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Yesterday the Microsoft owned streaming platform formerly known as Beam was re-branded as Mixer. I joined Beam quite some time ago but I haven’t actually gotten around to streaming on the platform even though I have spent a number of hours watching others use it to stream. The interface is sleek, there’s almost zero delay between the stream and your chat which makes things incredibly nice when it comes to interaction.

None of that is the main reason I like this particular platform though.

As a gamer, community is key to me. When a platform I use gets shut down, it bothers me. Imzy is one such platform though they were not for streaming (you’ve probably never heard of it and that’s OK). Forge is another streaming platform that I used to use but it has changed and redesigned itself so many times I find it unreliable and I don’t have very much faith in it (plus it no longer does what I wanted it to do). The fact that Microsoft owns Mixer sits very well with me because they’re an established company with money at their disposal. It gives me a little tiny bit of confidence that Mixer (even under a new name) isn’t going anywhere, and that they’re invested in the product.

If you’d like to follow on Mixer you can find me there as Mixer.com/Stargrace – the same handle you can find me as pretty much everywhere. If you’re on Mixer, let me know your user name so I can give you a follow back! I spend a lot of time looking for awesome streamers to watch and I’d love to see more of my friends streaming. You’d be surprised at the things other people find interesting enough to watch (as I say this, I’m watching a stream of a seagul nesting. Yesterday I spent the better part of the day with a stream of puppies playing in the background).

If you’re trying Mixer for the first time let me know what you think of it! They’ve just announced a ton of new features including co-streaming, which is really neat to see in action. You can just invite whomever you wish to co-stream (for a maximum of three invites, four streamers total) and the chat channels will merge while the display shows each streamer. Perfect for matches of Overwatch or Mario Kart.

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

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