stargrace

A healing touch, and quest of the week

stargrace July 25, 2006 2Comments

Ellithia, my high elf templar, managed to get to level 20 today. I’m contemplating easing off of the necromancer a bit, and playing the templar more often in our little guild groups. Another healer would always be nice, and I am really a healer at heart, as most people know who have played with me before. Granted I have about 10 more levels to catch up to everyone, but I’m confident that I can do it with a little effort. Now I have to get her some level 20+ gear, or rather 22+ gear I suppose, but it shouldn’t be too difficult.

I’ve also decided that every tuesday, I’ll post a ‘quest of the week’. A particular quest that I’ve done that I enjoyed, or that had a neat reward, or that was unique in some way to me. I don’t expect others to feel the same way about them seeing as everyone has their own tastes, but I’m not exactly posting this blog for anyone else anyhow, so I’ll do as I wish (as always).

A Portrait of Destiny : Reward

I would highly suggest doing this quest and reading the lore behind the quest, if you’re an Everling fan, you’ll love it.

This is a great quest for fans of Everling lore. It starts in Nektropos Castle. Go to Pellea’s Room (-36, 0, -57) and examine the picture on the desk. It’s a picture of Everling and his daughters. (Note: you don’t get the quest until a later step, but you have to finish this step to be offered the quest.) If the picture isn’t there, wait a while and a servant will come and place it there. Now you’re going to go on a grand adventure, looking for items that belonged to his daughters.

Head upstairs to Crysta’s Bedroom and click on the picture on the wall to get the quest. It gives you a list of six items that you need to find. They’re all inside the castle. They are:

Paintbrush – Crysta’s Room – next to where you get the quest.
Wrench – Melanie’s Room – the canopic jar.
Leash – Jenni’s Room – the leash hanging on the wall.
Flower – the room below Dierdre’s Room – the shovel leaning against the wall.
Heart – Shiela’s Room – the mirror on the wall.
Sword – Castle entrance, near the necromancer – rag doll on the ground. Examine to get update.

You’re then told that you need to get six dolls that belonged to the daughters. The one you just got is the first one. The other five are:

Melanie’s Doll – Near the Obelisk of Lost Souls – -87, 91, -2227
Crysta’s Doll – Camp Leott – 134, 65, -1473
Sheila’s Doll – Gul’Thex – 699, 22, -707
Deidre’s Doll – Behemoth Pond – -215, 3, -278
Jenni’s Doll – Bear Cave – -1385, 28, -700

Head back to Nektropos Castle, go down to the basement, and talk to Alexa to open up the hidden areas. In Everling’s Research Laboratory (which is in the basement Loc – -3, -13.5, -10.5), you’ll find six spots on the floor. Right click on each to place the appropriate doll. When they’re all in place, the quest reward, an Idol of Everling, will appear in the center. It’s a nice item for your house, with a rent status reduction of 200.

Hope ya’ll enjoyed the quest of the week, a huge thank you to Gholdmoon for letting me know this quest was even out there. It was fun to do and the idol sits nicely in Silverstep’s house.

No plat for j00! (Oh my goodness stop trying to sell me gold!)

stargrace July 24, 2006 0Comment

I’m so tired of getting these tells from people that go on and on about buying plat from them. At least once or twice a day, for the past two weeks this has been happening. The GM’s are useless in this matter, there’s pretty much nothing they can do, as each time I’ve /reported it, and also then /petitioned the names. By the time they can figure out something, someone with a different name but the same message is bothering me about buying more online gaming money. It’s exceptionally frustrating. Especially since it’s interfering with playing the game, getting these spam messages. /Ignore is of no use since its’ very rarely the same name bothering you again

In other news. Got Willamina to level 30 necromancer, 29 sage. Books of course are still eluding me, what else is new. I also made a handful more alts, a templar and a few other little ones to play with, including an iksar shadowknight. Granted shadowknights are not rare at all, but I don’t play a tank class often and wanted a change. In fact, I don’t play tank classes at all (Calicia is an exception, and she’s more dps then tank). I hate tanking. I would much rather heal or stab or nuke. Speaking of stabbing I made an assassin as well. Feeling sentimental I suppose after I deleted my level 44. She’s only level 3 so she’s not big enough for anything at all right now, but it’s fun none the less.

The guild is growing quite nicely. We have 27 members now and 13 unique accounts or something like that. Guild level 6. Everyone is quickly approaching the level 30 mark, though I think we’ve done armor quests like 20 times now lol. I still don’t know anyone that well, and tend to keep my distance, but it’s fun. I do admit I get annoyed at dying from simple stuff that everyone should be able to use common sense to know, but well that is just me and my play habits.

I have a sudden craving for gummie worms.. more ranting later!.

30 Tailor, and a lack of vitality

stargrace July 20, 2006 0Comment

I absolutely hate the crafting changes since LU24. I speak from a long time crafter, I’ve had one of every class, and it has nothing really to do with the fact that there are now a bazillion other crafters out there (thanks soe), but mostly because it takes a lot more raws and a lot longer to get anywhere and feel as though you’re making any progress. I get about 2% crafting exp a combine, for something that I’ve already crafted before (little difficult to work that first time pristine bonus when you only get 4 recipes a level), with vitality. I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of raws and fuel it would take to get a whole level without vitality. It’s just simply not worth it at all.

There are some out there who hate the crafting changes specifically because it is now much easier for the ‘average’ crafter to level up. It requires little to no effort besides gathering raws and paying for fuel. There are no sub combines to level off of any more, no tedious except for the grinding of the buttons, and instant gratification in your end product instead of having to make 3-6 other little items before you saw it. As a result the market is absolutely flooded with crafted items, and there’s fierce competition to get anything you make sold. Not to mention they’ve lowered the stats on just about all items / weapons / gear and unless it’s mastercrafted (rare), you’ll never get your money’s worth out of it in most cases. There are always exceptions.

And yet, it’s still not the reason why I hate the changes. I take little to no pride in the crafting process now. It’s become boring and with so few recipes a level it becomes pointless. At least I could always gather a few levels making sub components before. Now, I know a few crafters are also very glad of the changes. It means when a guild mate asks for a full set of level 20 gear, and you’re level 70 crafter, no longer are you spending an hour making sub components for a set of gear that you can’t even get any experience off of. So the process is much faster. However, I’d have rather seen it go this way instead:

Sub components re-implimented such as they were before– however, when a recipe no longer gives any experience due to it’s level (or when you hit level 70) it turns grey, and the recipe no longer uses sub components (but they can still be substituted such as they can be right now if you’ve had left over components). Removing the tedium of crafting level 20 gear at level 70, and making it faster, but also still allowing those people who use sub components as a method of gaining experience to do so. Sure, it wouldn’t please everyone, but in my ideal world that’s how the crafting would work in EQ2.

Will I give up crafting due to the Live Update24? Probably not. I admit now, I’m pretty addicted. I re-activated my station access account so I can create 10 characters (I actually did this because I was missing some expansion packs and didn’t feel like purchasing each one for $7.99 American when I could just pay the $24.99 and gain access to all again), and have a wide variety of crafters. It gives me something to do when I’m bored, not to mention the rare gear / jewelery etc are still nice upgrades, and they do still sell well. I can get on average 30-1p a day from rare T3 crafted items. I realize you can get a lot more with simple adventuring, and I like that factor as well since I do both, but the option to do one or the other or both is always a nice variety for people. Granted EQ2 does not strike me as a game solely for crafters, there’s not enough to support that, but if you need a break from the adventuring and questing, well, there’s something.

The Lair of the Necromancer.. and adventures with Pascolino Ciete’Bellezzas

stargrace July 18, 2006 0Comment

“Pft, it won’t be dangerous! T’is just dead things!” Willamina pulled Pascolino along through nektulos forest by the arm, eager to show off her new adventuring location. She’d stumbled into it by accident, after hearing some tidbits from her friend Gholdmoon. She had not intended on wandering through the darkened tunnels, no not at the time. But she certainly had a lot of fun while she did it! It was something that had to be shared! It was far better then trees that moved. Those things gave her the creeps.

The Lair of the Necromancer is a solo instance (but a group can zone in, or at least a group of two can, I’ve yet to try it with more) which is located directly behind the dragoon you use in the heritage quest shiny brass halberd, which I’m sure I’ll be doing some time shortly. It has a very small loot table, but was still pretty fun and while it’s a cut and paste version of the fallen gate instance, the final boss room has some nice looking statues.

Willamina is now a 27 necromancer, 24 sage, I’ll have to catch her up again. I’ve been using Silverstep to farm T3 roots for the tailor, who is just a smidgen away from 29 now. The blasted crafting books are exceptionally expensive for 20-29 it seems, I’ve little to no chance of grabbing advanced jeweler volume 28. It has all the palladium recipes in it, and is sought after by numerous people (unfortunately). The others are still sitting at their regular levels, Ricotta 26 jeweler since I’ve been lack luster in playing her. Nesia is way behind in carpenter levels, but I’ll get to it eventually!