Nomadic Gamer

LoN Fever..the Good the Bad and the Ugly

stargrace August 26, 2007 3Comments

Hooked already, at least for a short time, I spent the evening test driving LoN

Yesterday it was announced that random people had been selected for LoN beta. I got in with both of my accounts, and decided to give it a test whirl. Now, if you’re looking for guides, this is not the place. If you’re looking on how to play the game, wrong-o again because I suck when it comes to explaining that sort of information. So this is (as are all my posts!) just general opinion stuff.

I loved the game. Granted, I have played card games before, and yes it does give you a small advantage if you have a vague understanding in what to do from the get-go. The tutorial was long, and I barely paid attention to it. Instead I got right to the battles against the computer and learned that way (which may explain why I lost, a lot). Everyone graciously starts with 1 booster pack (the pack of 15) and one starter pack of a designated class. Mine both happened to get fighter, however a friend managed to get a mage one. You can buy the starter packs to the other classes for $9.99, or a booster pack for $2.99. I’m sure SoE will make a LOT of money off of selling these virtual cards. Which is a whole other discussion.

Now, a portion of the game that I do not like at all. As far as I have seen, so far. There is no way for you to get any of the neat “things” (or in this case loot cards) without spending real life money (or trading your rare cards / money with another who has the item you want). Loot cards come in booster packs. I find it quiet amusing that the “store” is open already, even though we’re all apparently just beta testing this game. People can already spend their real life money for these packs of virtual cards and obtain the rare “cool” loot items (randomly). A few of these are house items. One is a tradeable box of cards with 400 rent reduction. – and I’d love to get my hands on one, but I see no other way besides paying 100p for it on broker, spending real money in an effort of purchasing it randomly through booster packs, or trading for it with another player (in which case, why would I even have anything they wanted to begin with). I have no idea if perhaps when the game goes live, when they say that mobs will drop these cards, if they will drop whole booster packs, or just one card at a time. If there will be any other way to obtain the interesting loot that comes with it (which is unfortunately the only real motivation for some to play, and I’m not above that). The epic mount is another one of these very cool items that few will own, and the cloak that shape shifts you into a box.

So I made an agreement with Shadowgeist, we’d each either buy four booster packs (for a total of $12 and some change) or one booster and one starter (the same price). After that, no more. With his beta claimed decks, he got an item that changes him into a frozen skeleton randomly. I got… nothing. He bought a mage deck (which does not claim to give loot cards anyhow) as well as one booster deck, and recieved nothing.

I decided to purchase four booster decks, and also got nothing. Meanwhile I see a box, and an epic warg a few feet from me, and two card boxes for sale on broker for 100-140p. On the other hand, I can trade him all of my mage cards since I have no use for them, and he’s going to trade me all of his priest ones since that’s the next deck I’ll be working on.

The game itself is quite fun, but I can see it getting very boring very fast if you’re not one of those people who can afford to spend real life money on bettering your deck. I’ve got no idea when it’s going to go live, and I assume the dropped items are not in game until after that point. I know a lot of people were very angry that SoE was advertising “random” people were getting chosen to beta test it. Outcries of “why wasn’t I chosen” and what not echoed through the channels. The game plays smoothly, however after 4-5 matches I seemed to stutter and lag when my character decided she’d had enough of her ‘fix’ and wanted to adventure again. The cards are wonderfully drawn, the playing mat beautiful, and I didn’t encounter any bugs at all the few times I played. Over all, the experience was a lot of fun, just not sure on a few things.

Stuck a Feather in Her Cap.. and Called it Ding Level 67…

stargrace August 24, 2007 1Comment

Goudia proudly wearing her new hat, new breastplate, and some new gloves

Managed to do a few remaining quests in Lesser Faydark yesterday (thank you to Gerbil for the help with those heroics) and some in Loping Plains (thank you Shadowgeist for helping me out there) and got Goudia to 67. Means 3 more to go and she’ll be able to wear the rest of her pretties. A huge thank you to Kandrial as well, who helped get me into an empty Freethinkers Hideout zone, so that I could get a quest update that rewarded a nice item for the bardling, the runed relic circlet. It has +30 to all spells on it, and as I’ve posted before, bards attacks are considered spells. At least the majority of them. I have 6 pages of “spells” in my knowledge book, and three pages of CA’s.

So technically speaking, I’m int / str as far as damage goes, and agi for power. Goudia is sitting at 408 str 483 int and 283 agi (not the greatest stat of hers I know). As soon as I can wear all the other gear I’ve got on her that should boost up quite a bit. I realize that bards during a raid are so busy casting jesters cap on folks and PoTM and all their other bonus spells that dps is a low priority, but I enjoy being able to do a little bit of solo’ing (hah, who am I kidding, I practically always solo) between other things.

The bard is very different from all my other classes. I enjoy her a lot. Is that to say that I enjoy playing her more then all of my other characters? Well, I’m actually not sure. From time to time I miss my healers. I miss the hard work I put into them getting them where they are, and yes I miss their gear too. Only natural I think. So I’ll continue to get Goudia closer to 70 (even with the sudden surplus of bards I’ve seen scattered around Norrath, which is just odd might I add, we seem to have a healer shortage though, or maybe tank depending on the time of day). Working on her SoD, Claymore, various L&L quests, HQ’s, her house.. There’s plenty to keep me entertained in game.

Sales have been slow for my poor little weaponsmith, and a few others are experiencing the same drought it seems. I’ve been putting ebon weapons (as well as feysteel when it’s cheap) for sale at a fairly smooth price, the first day everything sold and I was very excited. Now though my merchandise seems to be sitting for a week or more before it starts to move. I suppose it’s just a slump in the market and maybe people are below or above the crafting level I’m trying to push out. Speaking of which, another goal for Goudia, she needs a few more crafting levels. I spent last night making adornments for her gear in preparation for 70, attached those pieces I knew would not get an upgrade for quite some time (breastplate, gloves, legs, shoulders, ears, weapons, bow..etc) and realized just how much time money and effort goes into properly gearing up a single character, and this is my.. fifth one? Wow.

Once Goudia hits 70 and I continue to work on her tradeskill, I’ll be looking to level up both the coercer and the brigand, I think. Then there’s also a templar I’ve access to that I may help level up, and a fabled 70 swashbuckler who I’d love to play with a little. I still of course envy those who can just settle down on one character and play that character continuously, but I don’t think I’m that sort of person. I seem to always flounder about from character to character depending on what mood hits me.

Death by Music Notes.. the life of a Troubador

stargrace August 23, 2007 3Comments

Goudia in Loping Plains, taking care of a little ghoul business

I decided to hang around Loping Plains last night with Goudia, completing a few quests that she had (before they all turned to heroic at least) and getting the few tid bits of discovery experience that she had yet to get. Started the hand of glory quest (one of my favorites) and finished off entering the veil (one of my least favorite quests). She’s sitting at around 45% exp right now, which is great. Thunderwalker surprised me yesterday by giving me the troubador legendary hat from vaults, which has the feather I’ve been eyeballing for Goudia (cheers!) so a huge thank you for that. More inspiration to get level 67 and higher. She’ll be able to wear the new hat as well as the relic breastplate next level. Then it’s just two more before she can wear her legendary set gear, and one more after that for her weapons.

I played Sensual just for a short bit, completing a few more quests with her along with a dirge. She’s a lot of fun to play, and I’ll be posting an rp note surrounding her past either today or tomorrow, we’ll see.

Faydai hit 67 sage this morning, only two more to go (I’m not concerned with hitting 70 right away as there are no books for her to scribe and she’ll level off of combines alone) and then she’ll be done her crafting for a bit. I’m beginning to stock pile T7 raws in preparation for RoK. I don’t want to have to search far and wide for T8 raws that are going to be in high demand, especially with tinkering and transmuting galore.

Waiting for Goudia to get a bit more vitality back before I continue with her tradeskilling. It’s a painful process. Weaponsmiths don’t get a huge amount of recipes, not compared to my other crafters at least. Granted my woodworker probably gets the least amount of recipes. Which is why she’s sitting at 62 and I’ll be lucky if I ever obtain the rest of her levels.

A few short term goals: L&L’s completed on Goudia, Level 70, Progress in Claymore, SoD, DT access, and maybe MoA (though I doubt it, MoA is sort of useless for bards. I’d rather the Sour Song Choker from Unrest). We’ll see how many (if any) of these I can acomplish. I wish I could /claim some exp potions on her for either adventuring or crafting, but alas I’d already spent them all on the healers before I moved them over to their own account. Figures.

Legends of Norrath comes out in a short while (either next week or the week after, I forget) and I’m actually looking forward to that. Problem is, I’m not sure if I’m looking forward to the actual card game, or just the fact that there are house item rewards. I’m sure you can all guess which has a higher priority for me.

Have I mentioned I love the writs?

stargrace August 22, 2007 1Comment

Goudia keeping busy…

I typically refuse to level my crafters if they have no vitality. Making things for very little profit with even less experience as a reward is not exactly the way to keep motivated. However introduce the experience upon completion of writs, and suddenly I’m eating them up, vitality or not. It takes 5 non-rush order writs, with no vitality at all, to get a level in crating. That’s 60 combines. It’s actually not too bad at all. I’m trying to push Goudia into the next tier, and then of course my main goal is to get her to 70 before RoK comes out. The hardest part is actually making sure I have enough metals to get through the levels. I’m not sure about other servers, but on Antonia Bayle, lower tier metals like carbonite and fulginate are going for anywhere from 20s to 35s in some cases, each. It makes for some fairly painful crafting if you’re the sort who buys their supplies.

I also managed to get Goudia into a quick Valdoons run yesterday with Thunderwalker and his boxed warlock Gerbil, I played Shadowgeist. It was my first time tanking the zone and I don’t think I did that bad. Gerbil ganked off of me maybe once and not for long. Thunderwalker did die once but only because I had accidentally pulled three encounters while he had a ward up. We were attempting to get a piece to drop for Goudia or Gerbil, both of whom could use their legendary class sets still, but of course as the game works, the shadowknight forearms dropped. On the plus side, it means that they won’t drop next time since I stashed them in Shadowgeist’ bank. I really like the new method of legendary set drops.

It’ll be nice to start working some baby alts up next. Goudia is fine and dandy sitting at level 66 and I will get her closer to 70 over the next months but I’ve always had a soft spot for lowbie alts and twinking them out with new gear and new spells. Just the way I like to enjoy the game. Every so often it’s nice to take a break from the end game stuff.

Today I’m hoping to get Faydai closer to 70 sage, I’ve got her sitting at 65 with full vitality and that should help her at least get three levels. We’ll just have to see how it goes. Other then that, I’m feeling a wee bit under the weather, so I haven’t had a whole lot to say this morning. Damn summer time flues.

Four more to go.. but it feels like a million..

stargrace August 21, 2007 6Comments

Just one of the many toys I’ve got stashed aside for Goudia, if she ever hits 70

It is probably just me, but it seems like levels are taking forever lately. It’s probably because I tend to be very anti-group (why be anti-group if you’re playing an MMO, right?! I know the arguments) but Goudia finally managed to hit level 66 last night. I worked on the simple SoD quests (which were not actually that simple at all) and did a few collections to net me the final 20%. She scribed her new master spells and as I tried to clean out her bags some I realized that she’s got over 15 pieces of gear / masters saved up for her journey to 70. If that’s not motivation to level I’m not sure what is. The bow pictured above is just one of the items I’ve stashed aside for her. She’s also got 3 pieces of her legendary set gear (all of the tradeable pieces) two very pretty weapons, and lots of masters, as well as her relic breastplate and a few other odds and ends.

I haven’t quite figured out which adornments she’ll need, but hopefully Thunderwalker will be helping me out with that. I’d like to get them made for the pieces that I at least know she is not upgrading any time soon, the weapons, the legendary set gear, earring, bow, etc. Though the bow is pretty much a given as she’ll get the fabled +10 dps adornment I’m pretty sure. I know and understand that during a raid a troubador is very busy casting jesters on people and they may not exactly have the time to be dps’ing during the battles, but for solo’ing I absolutely love this class. Yesterday I spent some time duo’ing in Tunaria with the mystic and bolster pushed my int up to around 750 – made for some very nice dps.

So what is on the schedule for things I’d like to accomplish? I want to see Goudia hit 70 before RoK (she’s 4 levels away, this will be an easy one to acomplish) then I’d also like to see her progress claymore, SoD, and a few other quests that she’s avoided. I want to get her cloak of flames (just for fun mostly) and get her worshiping a deity. I was thinking of starting with Zek because it’s at least something I can full complete, and then moving to Sol Ro for the +spell damage cloak. She’s wearing a little one from Steamfont at the moment. I really want to finish the cloak of flames for her as well, just because it would look nice.

I also want a hat with a feather for her. How girlie is that hmms. The level 67 troubador hat is for sale for 8p, however the people are not selling from their homes and I’m not keen on paying the fee. I’ve mailed those selling the item in an attempt of talking them down, but we’ll have to see where it goes (if it goes anywhere, no replies as of yet). Faydai hit 65 sage, yes, I know, slacking again. Other then that things are fairly quiet with me as always. I’m sorry that I haven’t had too much to talk about lately, but it’s just been one of those weeks (or months).