Ashengate

Dreadspire Keep, Ashengate, and Loping Plains

Groceries and some family things took up a portion of my day yesterday, but today is a holiday (woohoo) so it’s still relaxing. In the US I know this day goes by President’s Day (I believe at least) while here in Canada the official name for it is “Family Day”. Basically there were no holidays in February so they made this one up. Not that I’m complaining! Yesterday in game was another round of ‘firsts’ for me. My necromancer is almost level 40. On the side I’ve been trying to level her up because while I enjoy the rogue, I am far more of a caster class when it comes to personality. Be it a healer or a mage sort. I still want to be able to do things ‘with the big kids’ hence the rogue. 

While I was leveling up the necromancer a very kind Paladin by the name of Hystorm came by and buffed me and my pet. While they were in Skyfire (I was in The Overthere) a necromancer level 51 spell dropped and they came all the way back just to give it to me. It was very kind of them and made me realize why I love EQ so much. The community is completely different then any other game I have seen. I belong to the general channels and I’ve never had to turn them off. I’ve not seen anyone be rude or crass or outright mean. Everyone is still talkative and there were (at least last night) over 250 people on these channels. It is so nice and refreshing to see. 

Anyhow, I really appreciated this stranger helping me out. Once Ultann and Ninga were around it was time to play a little. We headed to so many places that I’ve never been. One of my favorites was Dreadspire Keep – apparently this zone involves Mistmoore some how but I don’t know enough about the background story. It was great fun wandering around shrouded until I fell through a trap (rug on the floor) in the dinning room and then as I was wandering around some drachnid something saw me and before I knew it I was staring at my corpse on the floor. Thank goodness I have two wonderful friends (and a cleric mercenary) who were willing to come after my corpse and rez me. 

We also explored portions of Loping Plains. Since EQ2 is 500 years after The Shattering, I had to chuckle to myself that I was seeing the EQ version of Loping Plains well after I saw the EQ2 version of the zone. There’s a lot of zones that are like that for me now. I believe the zone is a hot zone, and if not there were certainly a lot of people around (23+) who were exploring. We managed to find a little camp to set up in and spent a few hours pulling wolves and wereorcs. Their transformation graphic was neat to watch as the morphed into their wereorc counterparts, but after a few hours it was time to move on.

The group decided to make the treck back to Ashengate, since when we had been there the previous night it was too late to really do anything and I ended up going to bed. Last night wasn’t any different though as we entered the zone and the monk went and found our camp, my eyes threatened to close. My rogue managed to get 6aa yesterday and almost a full level, she’s 5% shy of level 73. I’ve been averaging a level or a little less a day without really grinding it at all, just exploring and playing with friends. With the new level cap of 85, I’m still a ways away, especially if I want to eventually switch over to the necromancer. She’s sitting on 137aa now which is also not a lot at all, but it’s still fun to watch the progress. 

I hope everyone else had an amazing time gaming, no matter your game of choice. See you in Norrath!

It’s All About the Clickies

I hope everyone had a fantastic Valentines day, even if you loath the day (which a lot do). I spent it doing what I love to do, a nice relaxing weekend at home (though I did go out to get a few cooler sized bottles of mudslide so I could celebrate) gaming. It was exactly what I wanted to do. I started out with a request, an item that had eluded me for a number of years now. My rogue sports her 1.0 epic, but I’ve never bothered to go any further with it because the 1.5 requires a whole lot of crafting, and I never worked up her craft skills. However, there’s one portion of that epic that I wanted very much. 

A lot of people in EQ remember the clickies. Clicky levitation, clicky invisibility, clicky buffs. So many clickies. We used to hone our collections and polish them with pride. Each clicky told a story, I think that was the main reason why I loved them. Someone would link a clicky they had and then go on to tell the story about how they got it and how long of a camp it was or how difficult the encounter was. I have the exact same feeling when I talk about my rogue masks. It was so difficult for me to obtain some of them, I spent literally two days straight camping place holders for one (of course this was a long time ago now) and even years later I still remember.

It was only natural that I wanted another clicky. The one I didn’t have was a scarecrow illusion. It required me combining the essences of some wisps into an oven along with a skull. Made sense to me! I don’t even remember where I got the skull from, but I had the essence from Befallen and I’d had it for years. The other ones had eluded me, the mobs at the time being too difficult. So when I mentioned to Ninga and Ultann that I’d really like this mask, they decided we would set off to get it. The mobs are level 65, they can’t be snared, they spawn at 0,0 within the zones. So monk and magician went and waited at the spawn points while I was outside the zone, then I’d zone in, get a CoTH (wow so not prepared for those, there’s no confirmation window in EQ) and within a matter of seconds I had my bits. It took an hour or two simply because of the travel times, but before long I was sporting yet another clicky. Exceptionally happy. Even if Seeds of Destruction (latest expansion) removed the need for some masks because there are aa illusions now (boo). 

Afterwards, Ninga (turtle) decided we would go to Earth, and go after something called a swarm weapon for me. This would be a day of firsts, before this we did some missions involving mushrooms and I don’t even recall the name – and I’d never been to earth before. I love my rogue’s Shroud of Stealth ability. I may not be end game by any means with my 117aa, and 10k hp but that one skill is fantastic. I snuck around while Ninga and Ultann did most of the work and we came to a ring event, known as “the Dust” ring event. The last round had all of the mobs spawned beneath the ground and that was a little annoying, but in the end we beat it and two caster shields dropped. Out dated, but it was still pretty nice stuff. We headed to the tunnels to start clearing stone men in hopes of spawning a named and getting a rogue weapon to drop.

A few hours later we’d seen some augments, and LoN cards, and lots of gems, and three no trade masks for healers / casters but no weapon. Ah well. After all of that, we set up a fellowship, a boxed cleric account was activated after the mercenaries decided to let the group die one too many times, and we decided to head to a place called Ashengate, Reliquary of the Scale. 

I’d also never been there. 

It was starting to get late, so I had time to make my way to the zone, help set up a campfire, and then decided to level up my necromancer a bit while one group member dealt with computer issues. Buffed up the little necromancer and headed to The Overthere, which is an old time favorite spot for me and also the hot zone for level 25. With the help of the cleric I dinged 27 before calling it a night and heading to bed. It was a fantastic day of gaming, and I had a lot of fun. I hope everyone else had fun too no matter their game of choice!

See you in Norrath!