Nomadic Gamer

Gaming

Over too Fast

stargrace 1 Comments

Where has the weekend gone! It was over far too quick and now it’s back to the week day grind which seems to include the heavy scent of tar since they’re working on the school across the street from me and that’s pretty much all I can smell. Gross. Anyhow!

It was a productive weekend game wise, and Ellithia (mystic) got her very first book randomly mailed to her to add to the library! I was pleased as punch, and sent a little coin in return. I’ll be adding it to the library list and will probably go into more depth about it before too long. Again, if you have a book that is NOT on my player-written book list and want to donate one please feel free to mail it to Ellithia on Antonia Bayle and I will mail some coin back in return.

Since I had two carpenters on Antonia Bayle (one level 80, the other 66) yesterday I decided to respec the 2nd carpenter and change her to a woodworker. Thankfully she is on my main account, which grants the 50% bonus for having other level 80 crafters, and it wasn’t such a big deal to me to lose the 66 levels I’d already gained. I decided to make her a wood worker, since we don’t currently have one in guild. We do have an 80 tailor, sage, armorer, jeweler x2, and carpenter. All we lack is the provisioner, wood worker, and weapon smith. I also decided to just simply get it over and done with, and moved my final characters over to Antonia Bayle, which means I am now done transferring characters, and won’t be doing that any more. It cost close to $200 to move everyone but I’m really pleased that it’s over with and that all my characters are on their respected servers. I had no issues at all transferring – so you can now find me on Antonia Bayle as: Ellithia (mystic), Arysh (illusionist), Sharatan (coercer), Petites (templar) or Satia (dirge). I also have a little bruiser named Stargrace, but I haven’t spent any time at all leveling her yet, the others are all level 80.

Last night saw the guild all together for a brief time before sleep and work pulled us in different directions, once Ultann was finished with his WoE raid (a zone I still have not been to, nor do I even have access yet) and we decided to head to Anchor of Bazzul and see if we couldn’t get something nice to drop. I started out the zone on Satia my dirge but mid way through relogging to Sharatan the coercer because we were having some difficulty with the named that requires you to wear the special void beast suits in order to attack him. The encounter itself was not what was giving us the problem, but we agrod him early on and he bugs so that he refuses to move from the very start of that small section, creating issues when trying to pull. It wouldn’t be so bad but we were not done pulling the rest of the alcoves nor the mobs at the end. Pet pulling just created a mess with all of the encounters running for us, so I relogged to the enchanter and mez’d him so that we could continue pulling, and then we all climbed into our suits.

What an incredible change to have Calreth and Kasul both along, we have so much DPS in our little group now, it’s odd. I didn’t box (which in itself is new) and Ultann boxed his healer since mine is already wearing a full set of T2 shard gear, Noc needs a few more pieces (and shards). I’m slowly gaining shards enough to make Sharatan her set, which will be nice.

Nothing of note dropped this time around, but yesterday when we did AoB the helm pictured above dropped, which was (needless to say) a significant upgrade for me. Still no sign of that void transfer earring, which seems about typical with us and our luck.

We do plan on trying palace for the first time ourselves, I don’t think we’ll have too much trouble until it comes to Varsoon. Even if we can take down the other named, that would be great. We’ll just have to see how it goes!

I hope everyone had an amazing weekend, and I hope this week is fantastic. No doubt you can find me in Norrath!

Gaming

Still So Much To See

stargrace 3 Comments

One of the reasons I have kept my love affair with EverQuest II for so long is the simple fact that there is SO much to see and do – even after all of this time. When I play other MMOs I mention from time to time that I get bored because I don’t want to always pvp, I don’t want to always craft, I don’t want to always group, or always solo. What I want is to be able to do whatever I feel like doing at that exact moment, and move from there. EQ2 is one of the few games that allows me to do this on a daily basis.

There are days when I want to go quest-crazy, and complete as many quests as I can, and there are a LOT of quests in EQ2. In fact looking at the EQ2 Questlist there are 6184 quests total recorded. Some of those are of course class specific quests, and ones that were removed from game or were only around for a limited time, but they still count. If you’re a fan of shiny collections (and lets face it, who isn’t?!) there are 421 shiny collections in game. I have barely completed 200 on any one of my characters. That’s a lot of shinies to work towards! Then of course there are days I would rather not go near quests at all, typically after one of my binges, hehe.

While no game has involved crafting into the actual game play as much as I would have personally liked, EQ2 comes the closest by adding crafter orientated quests to the game that players can complete without too much difficulty no matter their adventure level. It’s not perfect by any means but it sure comes close. If I feel like grinding out a few crafting levels while watching a movie it’s a perfectly viable option.

There is a fair selection of group and solo content – and if I run out of solo content I can always go back and do the group content that I may have out leveled (thus making it easier for me) and I’ll still get achievement points for doing so. I’m really looking forward to the update that will allow players to mentor to a specific level and thus complete content as level appropriate without having to always have a lowbie in group. It will be nice to complete old raids, be able to farm masters that may not get upgrades (enraging demeanor anyone?) and just pretend to be a lower level for once.

In fact how many times have you started playing a game your friends were on only to have to play alone while they play their mains – or have to constantly play ‘catch up’ before you could actually play together. I think the mentor system that EQ2 has is something that a lot of people over look. The ability to play with your friends no matter what level they may be is something that I really cherish. It doesn’t matter if I have 100 level 80 characters (scary thought) I can at least help out on my main character and not have to re-create a lowbie.

I spent this weekend cleaning up my two EQ2 accounts a little. I deleted three characters (including an 80 sage but we won’t talk about that!) that I had very little interest in playing any more (my 58 swashbuckler, 61 necromancer, and 61 bruiser). It freed up a little space on my second account should an urge ever overcome me again to create another alt (and of course it will) and trimmed down a little so I can actually clearly tell what level 80’s I have. On my main account I have 7 level 80’s as well as my level 74 paladin – a full account in other words. On my second account I only have 1 level 80 (the mystic) but hey I suppose there’s a goal to work the other 6 up. Of course when the next EQ2 expansion comes out I’ll have 10 levels to try to gain on everyone including new gear and new spells, but maybe by then I’ll settle down with a ‘main’ and turn all those into crafters.

Hah. Right.

I hope everyone had an amazing weekend, here’s hoping it’s also a fantastic week!

Gaming

Guk: Halls of the Fallen, and Alts

stargrace 2 Comments

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

A Little Bit of Everything

stargrace 3 Comments

Another day of ‘not much going on in game’ since I was so busy doing other things on Friday but today should be a good day of gaming. I’ve been meaning to play a little more Sims 3, but haven’t managed to find the time (yet). Soon! I did dip into Wizard 101 for a fair amount yesterday, my Life / Storm wizard hit level 20 and did some awesome battles. I’ve also encountered a few dungeons now – that I can’t beat what so ever. It was still fun! I redeemed my facebook code and earned 1,000 gold which makes me able to afford the smaller house in Wizard City, but I’m thinking of saving up for a home of a different world. I haven’t quite decided yet. My Myth / Death wizard also managed to snag a few levels and is sitting just shy of level 10. I’ve been completing the Wizard City quests with her and she’s obtained some really awesome house items that the higher level wizard missed out on since they came after I’d completed the quests.

In EQ2 I plan on getting a few crafting levels (carpenter hopefully), doing a few instances (the boys should be around I believe, which will be great) and maybe I can finally get that transmuting up to 350+ which will let me begin to transmute T8 gear. Then it’s time for adornments!

What is everyone else up to this weekend? Any good games on the list? Once things have calmed down a little more I should have a little time in LotRO (I have a free month incoming) since that tapered down some. The game is great, but it just feels (to me) exactly like every other fantasy MMO out there, and I’m already playing three of those (EQ, EQ2, VG). I still love the look and love my character, but without an infinite amount of time to be able to play everything I want to play, something has to take a back seat.

Other then that, quiet weekend. Happy gaming and I’ll see you in Norrath!

Gaming

Dungeons, Crafting, and Transfers – Oh My!

stargrace 3 Comments

Yesterday I decided to move my 80 troubador over to Kithicor. It wasn’t exactly spur of the moment, I had been thinking about it for quite some time but when I filled out the typical petition email to transfer I was told that I would have to actually call San Diego in order to initiate the move. On the plus side even though I would have to call long distance, the move would be instant.

I have never had too much difficulty paying the $50 character transfer fee – of course like everyone else I wish it were cheaper (and easier) but gaming (the bits I do for ‘fun’ as opposed to work) factors into an entertainment budget. If you consider the amount of money someone may spend on alcohol (I don’t drink), movies, vacations or other sorts of entertainment as opposed to the amount that I spend on video games and MMORPG’s in specific, I actually spend a good deal less then the average person. When you take into account the fact that the cost of my SOE accounts are also covered due to work, I’m getting a huge bargain on time spent entertained vs. cost of said time.

When the decision comes to move a character, I don’t spend any time berating myself over the cost (unless I have a hankering to move all my characters which would cost over $500 at once, that’s a big chunk of cash) but rather just move on with it and filter it under that entertainment budget. I know that not everyone can do this, and there are plenty of people out there who think that I’m crazy for having spent so much money moving characters around. Ah well.

The troubador is settled on Kithicor, I celebrated by picking up a few cheap masters and then spent the evening doing a few easy things from the laptop while I continue to battle health issues. Wpus had to head to work, but Kasul and Ultann were still around. Ultann and I headed to Karnor’s Castle to take down some named (farming in there seems to be all the rage as of late) and while I didn’t win anything of note it was still a lot of fun. Afterwards I decided to get some crafting done on the little bard, she was a 71 alchemist when I moved her over and she’s now sitting slightly into level 74. I have plans of getting 75 with her today so that she’s the appropriate level to make adornments. Speaking of which the little ratonga also happened to transfer along all of my adornment supplies, so I should be able to get the illusionist a few more skill ups today.

The troubador (aside from being an alchemist) is also a max level tinkerer, which comes in handy. Ultann, Wpus, and Kasul are all also tinkerers. My favorite item (by far) so far is the ‘call of the tinkerer’ and I’m glad there are a few handy bits out there that we can make use of.

The guild is inching its way to level 45, and new harvest bots. We purchased the root NPC when we hit level 40, and now we’re looking to get the mining NPC. This makes crafting a LOT easier, especially in a smaller guild. With only four of us in the guild and Kasul still fairly new, I’m exceptionally pleased that we’re coming along so well in levels. I still have a whole lot of Heritage Quests to complete one of these days. Ah the persistent quest of ‘how many things can you achieve in so little time’.

Hopefully everyone is doing fantastic this fine Tuesday. Have fun where ever you end up, and I’ll see you in Norrath!

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