Alts

Guk: Halls of the Fallen, and Alts

stargrace June 14, 2009 2Comments

Yesterday actually found us with most of the guild at home – something that has not been happening too often lately, and our lack of instance running has really been noticeable. We’re still doing lots in game though and still talking and hanging out when we can. I always expect things to slow down slightly for the summer months, so it’s nothing too serious, just another blip that I notice.

By early evening we did manage to drag ourselves over to Guk: Halls of the Fallen which happened to be the daily double. I thought that we had done Guk: Lower Corridors but we have not actually been there before, and where we HAD gone, was Halls of the Fallen. This is the instance that requires you to defeat the lord at the end. The last time we had been here it went pretty smoothly and Ultann had grabbed himself the awesome fungus spore charm from the final named. This time around things went even smoother and I left Arysh at home and brought the bard.

Unfortunately the bard didn’t have as much luck as the illusionist did and we didn’t see anything of note at all drop from the instance. The final named dropped a coercer level 80 master which I’ll be saving up for my baby coercer, and also dropped a cloth robe that’s pretty horrible to put it bluntly. Especially when in order to do the instance at all you’d better be sporting T1 or T2 shard gear (which means you have a chest piece already). We were proud that we had finished the zone, but the loots really could have been better for the amount of difficulty in the zone. We also neglected to get the single shard quest from outside the instance, so it was only a three shard run instead of four. Four is still better then none!

Ellithia (my mystic) is 4 shards away from her T2 shoulders which is the final piece she’ll need. I’m exceptionally happy to be finishing off her shard gear finally. Since my 2nd account has three characters who are all in the midst of obtaining T2, it will be a while. I’ve just finally decked them all out in T1, and while I know it’s a slow process since I rarely concentrate on just one character, it’s also nice to see them all get their bits one at a time.

Afterward I had an hour or two to waste and I decided to level up my baby coercer. I miss being able to charm and while yes, this would be my 4th enchanter, my coercer is over on Najena and I don’t want to pay another $50 right away to move her (plus that would require another long distance call to San Diego, and I just did that last week to move the troubador). For now I’ll stick with leveling the baby arasai the old fashioned way.

The transmuter is FINALLY able to break down up to and including level 70 gear, which means I’m officially on T8. My bank has been completely stuffed with items for a little while now that I’ve wanted to transmute and haven’t been able to, and it’s finally starting to dwindle. It will be nice to be able to help the guild out with transmute bits, now we just need a few more crafters to hit 80 and we can make all of our own adornments as well. So far we have the jeweler, tailor and alchemist able to make the T8 adornments, the carpenter, sage, and armorer are not too far behind.

Our little guild of three plus one (I use the term with love, as a nick name, lest anyone think that Kasul is not included in this little guild properly!) is doing amazing. We haven’t managed to find the venekor guild trophy yet, but our hopes are high. Speaking of the hall, we just passed level 45, and we’ve purchased more amenity. A huge thank you to Ultann who spent hours upon hours straight grinding writs in order to get us the levels while the rest of us pretty much slacked, hehe. I have hopes that eventually one day we’ll be able to move into a T2 guild hall, but I haven’t looked into the cost at all yet and I’m not quite sure how a move works – ie: does all of the coin and status we have put into this one carry over or do we start from scratch. Anyone know? I believe it carries over but I’ve yet to confirm it.

In any case, it’s wonderful. One of our best purchases to date has been the shattered lands bell that lets us port to the shattered land zones. These include Antonica, Commonlands, Zek, Enchanted Lands, Feerrott, Nektulos Forest, Thundering Steppes, Everfrost, and Lavastorm. Combine that with our druid portals that we also have and we can reach anywhere with relative ease.

I hope everyone has had a fantastic weekend so far, and it continues to be wonderful! No doubt I’ll be spending the remainder of my Sunday in Norrath now that real life has quieted down some what. It’s nice to have something to blog about!

See you in Norrath!

Gaming

You’re level WHAT?

stargrace April 19, 2009 2Comments

I believe I started the day as a level 38 fury and 41, respectively. I was up early (always am) and had very little planned for the day (though some new living room curtains did get installed as well as a shower curtain) so I decided to spend most of it gaming. It’s not often I get those chances, this week has been work-free since my deadlines passed, and next week will be much the same (unless I manage to find extra work, who knows) until I get into gear to meet more deadlines. Ah, joy. Anyhow! I had time on my hands, that’s the point. I logged in and before too long Ultann woke up (way too early for him) and we decided to go play in Permafrost.

I’ve mentioned before about how I dislike that EQ2 zones can “grey” out, giving people little to no reason to ever revisit them unless they mentor down. I think it’s a poor game plan. You don’t want people to out level your content, you want to allow them the freedom to explore where ever they want – give them choice. EQ and WoW are both examples of this. Things don’t become trivial per say. As I entered empty zone after empty zone it simply reafirmed my thoughts in the matter. There was no one around and we gained quite a few levels. I believe Ultann’s inquisitor box was level 51 at the time.

Before long, Wpus joined us and we moved to new grounds. I don’t remember the exact order that the day went but by the end of it we had spent a fair amount of time in the Clefts of Rujark (we did the two instances within that zone) which is off of Sinking sands, we also hung around in Sanctum of the Scaleborn and Ultann had to head out for a bit so Wpus and I explored around Pillars of Flame gaining achievement points and exploring some dungeons I never knew existed before heading back to the Kingdom of Sky zones for a little lazy grinding.

Through all of these zones I didn’t see another person. I DID hear a lot of complaining on the 1-9 channel about lack of low level groups (especially on Kithicor) where the majority of the population is 70-80 and those who are lower level are alts.

When all was said and done, the paladin reached level 63, and the fury is level 60. I managed to stay on top of the paladins gear enough so that she can actually tank some places – though she has issues taunting with adept1’s I do get amends and that helps a great deal. I had a blast, we explored places we’ve never been and saw things that we’ve never seen even after 4 years of the game.

I hope everyone else had an amazing Saturday, and that Sunday proves to be just as interesting. Safe travels no matter what realm you find yourself in!

Gaming

Alts are Expensive

stargrace April 18, 2009 2Comments

Alts are expensive. I know if I devoted all of my time to one character instead of the … 20 I have now, I’d probably have a lot more money in game. Not to mention moving servers would be cheaper, and my house would be the most impressive thing this side of Norrath. I’d also probably be fairly bored, because anyone doing the same thing day in and day out is bound to get boring eventually.

I’m not the only one with a whole lot of alts. I’ve tried cutting back and all it results in is more alts being made. It’s a vicious circle.

Yesterday I got the recruit-a-friend mount that grants members in my group a 10% bounce to experience so long as I’ve got the mount buff on. Great idea. I’ve named the horse “gassy” I’m sure you can guess why. The mount is also 55% run speed, which is great. Plus, it’s heirloom which means you can place it in your shared bank for all of your alts to use. Another big bonus since you can only claim one.

The paladin is now sitting at level 46, and the new fury at level 42. Last night Ultann took his baby inquisitor and we all headed to Obelisk of Lost Souls which is my favorite zone in the game because of how twisted and dark it is. We gained access to the lower levels, and it was a lot of fun (and surprisingly empty for once). Today I will hopefully quest in Everfrost until the boys log in and then we’ll decide what we’re doing from there.

I spent 15p last night outfitting the two characters which I knew would happen sooner or later. While I could certainly make it to level 70 without purchasing anything at all for them, I can’t solo that way realistically. I outfitted them both in tier-appropriate gear, and bought all of their spells at least adept1 quality, a few adept3 and M1 where the cost was right. They’re not twinked by any means, but it should be more then enough to get by. I wish Kithicor had a better ‘small’ population, people below level 60 as it were. I know the role play servers are bustling with activity, and I wish all the servers shared that enthusiasm but alas, they do not. Kithicor’s main population spends their time whining about how uber they are compared to someone else and shooting down those who are not as good as them. It seems like every single person I examine is decked out in fabled, and makes me wonder what ever happened. Alas, without a merge or a server transfer (which I can’t keep splurging on) I’ll remain there (for now). Fingers crossed for one of these two events happening in the future though.

Over all it was a nice night. After I shopped I decided to call it an early night and got some sleep. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend! Safe travels.

Gaming

Recruit-a-friend goodness

stargrace April 17, 2009 3Comments

Yesterday the trio veered off of the path and did something different for the evening. While we would typically be headed to Obelisk, Vaults, and Najena – this time we hung out in Fallen Gate and Runnyeye. Ultann is partaking in the recruit-a-friend program and leveling up an inquisitor to play with the group. I decided that I would also sign up for a month and level up a fury + my paladin who benefits from the 200% bonus experience when they’re together.

Here was my thinking – you get a free month added to your account when your recruit purchases the game (up to RoK) for $15. They get all sorts of neat claim items, and you get a mount. I can use the 3rd account to level up my characters – and at the end of the month I can simply close the account. I am not out any money so much as I am purchasing next months subscription now. Does that make sense?

If I happen to grow attached to the fury (or whatever else I create on the account) I can pay the $50 for a character transfer later. Since the recruit-a-friend account does not come with TSO it does limit what I can do but the experience is amazing especially since it’s linked with an account that still has lower level characters on it. I created a fury last night and paired her up with my paladin who was level 38 by the time our trio decided to take a break in RE – the fury managed to ding level 31 in the remaining two hours that I played and the paladin also benefited from the experience, leveling to 41 while she was mentored.

It will be nice to have a second tank around for those days where Ultann simply wants to be DPS and it’s a lot of fun going back to the older zones that we haven’t been to in a while. Another reason why I wish that zones wouldn’t grey out to people.

We have hopes of attempting some level 50 raids with our make shift group, I have no idea if it will come to pass or not, but it’s been fun to talk about which instances we want to try to do. There’s the Trembling Lagoon and other raids in Ferrott, and then there’s also some talk of doing prismatic 1.0 for appearance slot weapons and I REALLY want to do the Godking weapons which people call prismatic 2.0 – and then there’s claymore which we’d still need an actual raid for. It may not be too bad though as pick up raids are frequent on Kithicor (so many people trying to out do one another). In any case, we’ll just have to see!

Today is FRIDAY and I hope everyone has an amazing time – oh! Don’t forget that Fan Faire registration has also started!

Gaming

Betrayal, Instances, and Alts!

stargrace April 16, 2009 1Comment

Yesterday was busy in EQ2, that satisfied busy you get when you’ve got so much to get done and your friends are right there helping you finish it all. Well, that’s what it felt like in any case. To start it off I betrayed my coercer to illusionist on Kithicor. I know, I already HAVE an 80 illusionist AND coercer on Najena. I’m obviously demented. My illusionist’ personal dps has gone down slightly (especially if you count the lack of charm) the group dps is way up with the new buffs. We’ll manage. It didn’t take long to betray and the illusionist is all settled into her new home in Qeynos, moved into a nice North Qeynos home that I’ll decorate some day I promise.

Ultann picked up a recruit a friend account for himself in order to level up an inquisitor on his laptop as we play. A backup healer is great plus they have some pretty nice buffs we can make use of. Since he has been leveling up this character (approx 36 levels in two days if that) I decided it would be a great time for me to level up my paladin at the same time. It gives him a break from playing the tank if he wants, and I (yes) already have a 71 paladin on Najena. What on earth am I going to do with all of these character doubles if servers ever do merge or I do get my wish of some free character transfers. Well, not sure.

Before we got going on the alts we decided to give instances another shot to see if anything useful would drop. Vault of Eternal Sleep refused to give up the praetor’s guard that we’re attempting to get for the illusionist. Obelisk of Ahkzul refused to give up the healer shield that I’ve spoken about pretty much every day for the last year it seems, and Najena’s Hollow Tower refused to drop the cloak Wpus is after that comes from the water boss. Our look struck as true as ever. If these things DID happen to drop I have no idea what we would do any more since it’s been our routine for quite some time. We make jokes about it, and try to guess exactly what is going to drop.

So now the paladin is sitting at level 31, after being level 18 yesterday. We headed to Fallen Gate and lay waste to everything that stood (and a few that didn’t). Sure, she’s got no gear and is sporting app1’s (and getting adept3’s at level 80 is going to be not so fun) but part of the battle is done.

On an interesting note – the 10% bonus experience that recruit a friend people get from the mount – is group wide. So my paladin was receiving the 10% bonus from Ultann’s mount, since he was riding it. She was also gaining 50% bonus due to being on my main account with other 80’s and 55% bonus from a potion – and double experience from vitality which I managed to replenish with the orb of concentrated memories that players received with the 5 year veteran reward.

Not bad.

Tonight will probably be an evening of ‘more of the same’ but we’ll just have to see!

Guk: Halls of the Fallen, and Alts

You’re level WHAT?

Alts are Expensive

Recruit-a-friend goodness

Betrayal, Instances, and Alts!

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