Real Life

Just Watching the Sunset

stargrace December 30, 2007 1 Comment

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but the one thing Vanguard does have going for it, that EQ2 does not – is the sense that you’re a part of an entire world, rather then just bits and pieces of zones. Those trees in the background arn’t just some flat landscape, those hills are actually real. So if you were to head out that way, you could walk up them, maybe find some little hut with evil things scattered around or whatever. The game feels like an actual world, and I wish EverQuest had that going for it. I hate zoning to and from everything. Vanguard has no instances. There are ‘dungeon’ type areas, but they’re contested. Typically the overland has a mixture of both heroic and solo content and they’ve done such a wonderful job of things (despite the bugs).

Arysh hit level 16 warrior, after running around Veskal’s Exchange. She did an interesting quest from Orchau Livom who wants to make some turtle soup. You head out and painstakingly pick out only the best of the best as far as turtle shells go. That crossbow I was using must have damaged some of them, since not all turtles dropped a shell, go figure.

You bring them back and she makes a soup, and all proud and happy she asks you to deliver the soup to Veskal – who promptly spits it out and says (literally) “Thanks, but no thanks”. Which is a quest for you to dump the soup out in the river. Off you go (Randolph the Reindeer in tow) and dump the substance, glancing around to make sure no one saw you. Head back to Veskal who doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, so he asks you to lie to Orchau and say the soup was delicious.

Which you do, of course, because you’re getting paid quiet well.

In the end everyone wins out, Orchau moves on to other recipes (maybe picking up a good cook book along the way) Veskal doesn’t have to eat the disgusting soup (hey, I TRIED to pick the best shells for that!) and you make out with a good pocket of change in the mean time.

Oh yes. I’m certainly enjoying the break from EQ2. No doubt I’ll be back, but Vanguard (despite the bugs, again) is a lot of fun.

Off to watch Jojnny Depp (drools) in Sweeney Todd!

Carving the Roastbeast..

stargrace December 27, 2007 4 Comments

Happy Holidays to everyone, I hope Santa was good. As for myself, well, wow. I got a brand new camera (which was exactly what I asked for) from Shadowgeist, and we’re not just talking your everyday digital camera here, we’re talking an Olympus E-410, 10.0 megapixels of gorgeousness. My folks also gave us a new set of dishes (nice ones, with dark blue insides and black outside in a non-gloss finish) a new set of knives as well (the old block was starting to look a little rough around the edges). We all (myself, my brothers, Shadowgeist) made out like bandits as far as the stockings were concerned too. I also got a very cool dragon statue from my folks, and my Aunt and I did our Christmas Art exchange which was a lot of fun. She painted me a beautiful landscape in blues and whites with some green, a fantasy type setting with a dragon wrapped around the moon. Put my piece to shame, but we both worked really hard on them.

The 20 pound turkey (pictured above, with my Aunt (mom’s sister) on the left and my mom on the right) was delicious, after sitting in brine for two days prior to ensure it would come out nice and juicy. Of course I took enough home that I can probably live off of it for the next month.

The best part (by far) was getting to see everyone. My grandparents on Dad’s side and his sister / husband drove up from a few hours away, and my Nana and Aunt / cousins on mom’s side also drove up. We had a blast just catching up, and that was the most important part. My brother (the youngest one who’s 17) did get guitar hero, which was the hit of the party as we gathered around watching him strum away. Since he plays guitar (very well might I add) in real life, it was exactly what he wanted.

I did get a new headset since the right ear of my previous one broke, very nice logitech series from my brother. Though chances are I won’t be raiding for a while now (long story, lets just say I’m back in my old solo guild).

Game wise, I did make a handful of new alts on Vanguard. I’m still enjoying my time there, and trying to figure out if there is a class ‘just for me’ though no MMO has ever managed to make me think that before. I explored and did lowbie quests on the blood mage that was a lot of fun, then also managed to get a druid to level 8, and a psi to level 12. My warrior is also at level 12, and I started a rogue just for fun (they’re very difficult to solo, or so word on the street says). Aside from making bags, I haven’t been crafting too much, I’d like to get my artificer a few more levels, but who knows.

So again, Happy Holidays to all, and I hope the next year brings nothing but happiness and great gaming!

Oh, P.S. One of the least enjoyed activities I have ever done, would have to be – JUST – crawling into bed after a long two days (in my own bed at that) and having the building fire alarm go off. Spent 5 minutes tracking down the cat (who was hiding) another 1 trying to stuff her into the carrier and find some clothes, then trucked down the 11 flights of stairs to wait in the freezing cold (Canada, remember) to find out there was no fire (which was great at least) and waiting 20 more minutes before we could be let back inside. Needless to say Princess hates me right now (that’s the cat.. dur.. )

Exploring Around Telon and Three Rivers

stargrace December 25, 2007 No Comments

It’s been a long time since I’ve played my Blood Mage, and although not a whole lot has changed with the class itself, I was still rusty. Make that very rusty. Especially since she’s only wearing level 10 or so crafted gear. I decided to head to Thestra (which is fairly populated might I add) and headed to Three Rivers, which was filled with low level quests for me to do (that also rewarded some pretty good coin and some lower level gear that was better then what I was wearing). I had fun wandering around. Came across one quest where I had to capture a few halflings and dwarves in bags, then dump them into the river. Unfortunately afterwards the quest giver wanted me to dive back in and find their corpses, and bring them back to him in a bag. Gross.

His ‘assistant’ also wanted some sap, citrine, sapphire, and ruby (being the ultra rare one) that rewarded me with a face piece (great since I didn’t have one). I have just over a gold and a half now, so the money isn’t exactly flying in (I know I could make a lot more from crafting, or selling my harvested items) but for now it’s not bad. Plus I’m getting the hang of my character again. Not exactly a lot of experience, but that wasn’t what I was after. I have to find out where to turn in one of my old missives, an npc named Victor Branson, who’s apparently at Renton Keep – but I’ve been to Renton before in the past, and couldn’t find him. Did a search on google and didn’t get any more information, so when I get back on the 27th I’ll try to hunt him down.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and all that good stuff, no presents yet for me today as my Mom’s holding our family get together tomorrow. I called her this morning and she said we wouldn’t be postponing Christmas any more after today (snickers) at least my cat got to open her presents. She went crazy with them too, it was fun to watch (took some pictures that I’ll post up when I get back). Other then that, hope everyone stays safe. I’m off to pick up my brother and head home to my folks place. Much /hugs.

Questing in Telon – Day4

stargrace December 22, 2007 3 Comments

A friend of mine from EQ2 decided to give Telon another whirl with me, playing a disciple. They started out at level 5 while I was level 9, and I suggested forming a brotherhood so that we didn’t out level one another (as I have far more time to play then the average person). In the brotherhood however I was sucking up a lot of their exp (which is the whole point of it) so we dropped it for now to resume it another time. We leveled easily for two or three hours, doing random quests all around the Tanvu area, and found ourselves sitting at level 11 before too long, with little effort.

Since I’ve done all of the quests before (quite a few times) there was nothing surprising about them – but that’s how I enjoy the 1-10 grind, not having to spend hours and hours searching for everything. There’s plenty of time for that later.

Again the quality of the game play has shot up 10x since beta (if not more) and I’m sitting constantly from 20-60 FPS which is a huge improvement. I’m sure that with a better computer I’d see an upgrade in quality as well.

Satia (the 23 blood mage) managed to ding level 12 tailor – that’s right, at level 10 I noticed there were a handful of new recipes, but that she could not scribe them. They required doing a quest at level 11 (why level 10 recipes are out of reach until you hit level 11 I’ve no idea, that’s just the way it works) so at level 11 I went off to Martok and learned how to be a tailor. Created four items fairly painlessly (quests asked for C quality at least, which is not too hard) and then I settled into grinding some gear for my new psi. Her name is Faralithe, and it was nice to make her an entire set of gear with little trouble. Granted, I also got very little exp for making the grade A gear because it’s so far below my levels. One thing I dislike with crafting in Vanguard (and there is very little I dislike) is that you can’t tell when a recipe has turned grey to you, you basically have to remember when you got the recipe, and guess.

Bags still give me experience, and I made Faralithe a bunch of those as well. Even managed to get 100% pristine on two, thus making 16 slot grade A bags instead of 14 slot grade A bags. As far as I know bags are the only thing that work this way (but I could be wrong, remember, still new to the whole crafting bit).

Popped into EQ2 for a few minutes to check broker and banks, saw some guild drama going on, and decided to call it for now. Still having much fun in Telon (hey, it’s still free) even if I’m just enjoying it because it’s all new and fresh, hey, if it keeps me playing, what’s it matter.

A huge Happy Holidays to everyone out there as well, I’ve got a Christmas / Birthday dinner tonight, then two days of freedom before I head to my parents place boxing day to spend a few days there. Lots of family coming down, so even though we’re technically celebrating Christmas a day late, I’m excited. I hope everyone has a fantastic time, and be safe.