stargrace

Home sweet home..

stargrace September 24, 2006 0Comment

An image from Silverstep’s house, just one of my favorite corners

I know I’ve been slacking with the posts, but I typically do on the weekends. So what’s been going on lately in game? Well, the coercer hit 67, and is 70% into her level, so hopfully she’ll get 68 today. What’s that mean? I’ve actually been raiding with her instead of the warden, and let me tell you, I love it. It’s a completely different game with the coercer, complete with a whole different set of worries and concerns. Instead of keeping the tank (or my group) up health wise, I’ve got the responsibility of keeping them up power wise. I do this with various spells at my disposal, mana flow, mana cloak, ease, and gorging thoughts as well as beholder’s eye. The guild has two enchanters who typically are always on to raid, but not on the weekends due to work. I’m sure I’ll still be asked to play the warden quite frequently, or asked to sit out, but in the mean time I’m enjoying it.

I also managed to get Roost access done on both characters this weekend. What’s roost? It’s an epic x 2 raid zone in Mystic lake, completion of the zone gives you access to the x 4 version of it. Apparently pretties drop quite frequently, I wouldn’t know since I’ve never been. It was nice to get those village of shin quests completed though and it gave Stargrace a huge chunk of exp / ap.

I was also promoted in guild from initiate (a two week period) to recruit. I’ll become a full member once I’ve gathered 50 dkp, I’m standing at 30 right now and have 100% raid attendance, so the only way for me to possibly have more would be if more raids were scheduled. I figure another week and a half and I’ll have my 50 and be a full member. As well as an active raider if I can keep my raid attendance up.

I didn’t get to do any crafting, or play my alts, but I’m hoping as I get even closer to 70 I’ll have more time for that sort of stuff. I feel the need to be 70 for the guild and what not which is sort of bad but meh. Long as I’m having fun (which I am). Saw the live update notes for the next one, should be spiffy, I’ll post more details later. For now, it’s off to quest!

Oh yes, the picture above.. a little niche in Silverstep’s house, that represents me in real life more then in game since I draw and write and all that creative stuff. The easel is a quest reward and I’ve placed a little guitar close by as well as some random paintings. I love the way it turned out, just needs some lighting. The rug on the floor is the quest reward from poets palace access, that ports you to the shimmering citadel, very worth it might I add.

QoTW : Drednever Expedition: Unto the Breach!

stargrace September 20, 2006 0Comment

Stargrace in her kitchen, on the left her Drednever scrying sphere

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I am slightly addicted to houses and house items in game. Ok, so maybe it’s more then slightly.. each one of my characters own a home, ranging from the 1 room starter inns, to the 5 room manors. Silverstep owns a 5 room, Stargrace owns a 3 room, Ricotta owns a 2 room, and the others are tucked away in 1 rooms. So any quest that rewards me with a house item, is a fantastic quest in my eyes. That goes from furniture, books, or just little nick nacks to place around and give more of a ‘homey’ feeling.

This chain of quests was added to Solusek Eye a few months ago, and on ogaming it’s rated as average rewards.. but I think it’s one of those under rated quests. It starts with a gnome called Ognit Eznertob, who is just inside the zone. You have to be able to speak gnome to start this quest, so stop by your local Temple street or Baubleshire before you make your way down. He gives a series of quests, with a reward for each series. The first one gives a half decent ring, second gives you an item that can summon little pets to help you fight. The third one gives you the house item that’s behind Stargrace in the image above, and a description of it in the image below.

The fourth quest rewards you with the title “Champion of Drednever” as well as a legendary weapon of your choice (no trade). They’re pretty dang good for their level, the mage / priest one has flowing thought 1 and regen 1 on it, as well as some int, wis, and power and health. There’s pretty much a reward for every class. If the zone is gray (which it was to me when I did it on Stargrace) it makes the quest much easier, maps are a huge bonus as well. Even if you weren’t going to use the weapon reward (you can sell it for some coin) the house item makes this quest very worth it.

Coercer hits 66, and the bad part about raids..

stargrace September 19, 2006 0Comment

Stargrace killing glare lords in the Feerrott, clearing some of those green quests

I managed to get Stargrace to 66 finally yesterday, landed myself in an SoS group for about 20% exp who happened to be working on claymore. In fact, they were on my exact step, talk about luck. Finished one full quest with them and a good portion of the next one. Unfortunately it also requires me to speak druzaic (dragon language) which I do not yet speak. I have the starter for To speak as a dragon from the Maidens Gulch raid, but I’ve yet to progress any further with it. I’m supposed to visit Nagafen now, in Solusek Eye. The problem is that to get to them, you have to enter an instance, and if you’ve never entered it before you have to do an event– unless you bring someone with you who has done it. Stargrace has never done it before, so I’ve got to hunt down someone to come with me or try to do the event alone.

I’m really loving those frogs lately. I did all of the basket quests that I could in Tangle, and then jumped down to Hidden Refuge and discovered that there were 9 more repeatable quests that had me killing / gathering random items in that zone. Fairly easy, getting a little exp from the green mobs + 2% for every completed quest, as well as coin and items that will come in handy as I solo (like +3 defense for 10 minutes, items that heal, items that have wards, items that give +700 resists to certain types etc). I managed to actually ding off of these quests, and one I found in Temple of the Scale that I could solo invis. There’s an npc right at the entrance, he asks you to go get him some water, even though it’s a contested raid zone, you can invis through the first few rooms that are heroics, and in the very first room, is a click-able water bowl, that doesn’t break your invis. Went back to him, did the turn in, and ta da, 5% exp plus some 5 hour water with nice regen and stats on it. Not bad. It’s nice to have a master1 of my new single target mez, next level I get the master1 of my AoE encounter mez *drools*.

A lot of guilds are having issues with people not logging in for raids. Especially if they’ve been raiding for a while now and the content is starting to become a little dull. However, my guild has the complete opposite issue. We are not a large guild, there are 66 unique accounts, a few of course who no longer play or who play rarely or are boxed accounts. Every raid night, we have about 25-30 people log in, more often then not 30. Raids are limited in EQ2 by sizes of 24. Which actually really sucks. We’ve had to sit people out every raid night since I joined, and I think that’s a shame. Since I am an initiate, it was my turn to sit out last night. We had pleanty of healers, as well as enchanters, and I didn’t need the updates, so members / raiders take priority. Though I did still get dkp since I was on stand by. Unfortunately the guild didn’t take down the mob they were after (dragon in AoAx4), but maybe they will next time at least. It was a pretty boring night while I watched from the side lines, read a book and did other stuff to keep myself entertained. No one enjoys sitting out, but it happens. I’d much rather be forced to sit out, and have too many people attending our raids, then not having enough and have to cancel them all together.

Still trying to find my niche in the guild, I don’t know many people and there seem to be a lot of cliques. They’re very friendly though, talkative, and helpful. Slowly making my self at home, and getting comfortable. Another week of being an initiate, and I can be a recruit, then I come up for vote as a member I do believe. Not too shabby.

Stargrace does Deathtoll, and the frogs gain a friend

stargrace September 17, 2006 0Comment

Last night the guild decided to do a trash run of Deathtoll of all zones, for relic. I figured hey, sounds good to me. I expected to be going on my warden, since she’s level 70. But, the guild said no, go ahead and bring your level 65 coercer instead. I was excited and happy as hell. Even though almost every guild I join SAYS they want the coercer, in most cases they ended up asking me to play the warden instead. Whether it’s because I’m just a good healer, or because they were short, or because of the level of the coercer, it is really nice to have finally been able to do a raid on the coercer. We also killed the contested gold dragon in pillars of flame before that, and Stargrace landed herself some nice fabled shoulders, with pretty good resists. An upgrade for sure.

Today, I was doing some TT quests, just the solo ones where you run around killing 4-8 of one particular mob. Turn it in to mr. froggy in behind a pillar, and you get approx. 10g and some faction with the Lost Children of Marr (the Frogloks). My faction, as you can see by the image above, is max’d with them, lol. I don’t even have max faction with my home town of Freeport, or any other faction for that matter, besides the froggies. Maybe they’re easy for the coercer to manipulate? Left over feelings (the coercer is a wood elf who betrayed quite some time ago) from her Qeynos days? I found it amusing in any case. So I spent the morning running around completing enough of the quests to boost up her funds incase she’s going to be raiding more, need to be able to afford those repair bills. Granted they’re not as bad as they used to be, it costs about 25g for the coercer to repair, and slightly more for the warden (repair from naked that is). I would have liked to mentor someone for the ap experience, but I’ve done those quests so many times now. I have a few more (9) new quests from the frogs in my journals (and room for 3 more quests, eek time to start clearing some!) so I’ll be looking to get those done and out of the way shortly.

Customer service not all that bad, and the village of shin

stargrace September 15, 2006 0Comment

Qutey Patootie, listening to the monks in the village of Shin

In July I sort of went on a deleting spree, I removed all of my characters except my warden, at the time, that was the 64 coercer, the 61 templar, a 44 assassin and some other smaller alts who tradeskilled. I’ll admit righ tnow, it was a pretty stupid thing to do. I petitioned the next day, and managed to have the coercer returned to me, but was told there was nothing I could do about the others.

A week after that, I petitioned again and asked if I couldn’t have one returned, and again I was told no. I was sort of upset and expressed this displeasure at the GM who was talking to me, and left it at that. Recently I decided I’d give it one last shot, after all I pay to play this game monthly, I’ve had my account since the game came out and am in good standings, why not. So I petitioned, 10 minutes later had a reply, and the GM said they would help me, but not to expect them to do it again in the future (trust me, I learned my lesson about deleting characters that have some value to me). So I had my 61 templar Qutey returned to me. I was quite pleased, and pleasantly surprised. The customer service was prompt, friendly, and actually helped me out even though I’d been told no twice before.

A lot of people have issues with SoE’s customer service (or lack there of), but every time I’ve ever had to deal with them, be it by phone or petition, they’ve been friendly and prompt, so long as I was polite to them in return. I really can’t complain.

So now that I have Qutey back, I’m realizing just how behind in everything she is. Gear, spells, and ap’s. Sitting at uh, 7 right now actually, LOL. Since I have the 70 warden and 65 coercer, this is just another alt to add to the list, and she’s also completely broke since she’s sitting on a different server then my other two. It’s still nice to have the character back.

Last night was a lyceum raid, it went really well, we wiped once because the mez’d adds were broken and pummeled us, especially healers. On the final mob we got him to 18%, and would have actually killed him were it not for the fact that it was getting late and about 5 people had to leave, including some essential healers. The night before was Vyemm, and that just ended up being a mess by the end. We managed to get to him no issues at all, quick and no wipes, but as we fought him for some stupid reason he kept getting stuck into the ceiling. While you can still attack him from this position, you MUST be positioned underneath him in order to avoid a magic aoe, and we had no target ring to see where he was so that we could position ourselves. I think Silverstep died about 14x on that raid. Ouch.