Nomadic Gamer

eq

Gaming

Weekend Gaming

stargrace 3Comments

Have you ever had a heart attack before? If you have, then you know how I’ve been feeling the last 8 days. There is a certain satisfaction in knowing that I actually am NOT having a heart attack or anything at all that will seriously harm me, it’s just a great deal of pain. On the health front, things are improving! What we are pretty certain I have, and have been having in little ‘episodes’ for a while now is something called “Esophageal Spasm” it’s not a condition I really have to worry about in the sense that it does not get any worse, it’s just this chest pain and it *typically* passes as it has before, this time it was a little more intense and seems to be taking its sweet time dying down. I’m just happy to be feeling relatively normal again. Last week I went in for three blood tests, an EKG and xrays. They all turned out negative which is great. On the down side this esophageal spasm deal is hard for doctors to actually figure out and notice because there’s only a few ways of figuring out if that’s what you have. Thank you those who wished me well, I appreciate the kind words. I’m sorry for having ranted about my health issues for so long the last little while, but those are the breaks when it comes to this being my personal web site.

On to gaming!

I played a little EQ2 yesterday afternoon, ran Najena’s Hollow Tower where the caster cloak FINALLY dropped for Wpus – it has an 800 dmg proc when you cast hostile spells, which is great. Proc gear can really boost your dps. Afterward we headed to Crypt of Agony to see if we couldn’t get the range item (fabled) to drop for Ultann. While the zone was fairly nice in the number of legendary vs. treasured chests we got, we still haven’t seen that item (nor have we seen the Cardiocutter which I have been trying to get for my bard). The guild has been inching closer and closer to level 30 which means we’ll be able to purchase a new guild hall. I’m excited about that. Right now we’re inching our way through level 28, which seems to be going exceptionally slow.

Wpus, Ultann, and I have been thinking about trying out a PvP server in Eq2 for a short while. While I do enjoy PvP (or at least I did in WAR and WoW) I’ve never actually tried it in EQ2. I’ve never thought EQ2 was a game that was built for PvP. It’s nice to have a change though, so maybe I’ll have something new to report on that front.

I also played some Free Realms yesterday, I play an hour or two here and there, nothing steady. Exploring along this way I’ve come up with quite a few thoughts about my game play and why I enjoy this sort of game.

I have not reached level 10 in any one skill yet, I think my highest is a few level 9’s, and I haven’t unlocked everything yet. I have not done any combat at all in Free Realms to date. I imagine I will eventually. I enjoy the mini games (even if the mining and cooking ones mimic each other) I do not enjoy pet training that much because drawing the same symbol over and over is frustrating for me. I use my wacom tablet to play instead of my mouse since I’m left handed and if I’m going to be drawing something over and over I’d rather be comfortable doing it. The tablet also comes in handy when I’m playing the mini games that require me to line up the little gems / food bits for mining and cooking.

I bought my cat Princess a little pirate vest, and I’ve been contemplating purchasing a dog but I haven’t crossed that road yet. I’ve turned in a lot of tickets (I had about 400 saved up) and got some really nice level 20 gear for when I finally make it there.

For those people who have already hit level 20 in multiple “jobs” I wonder how much exploring they did, or how much they played. I’m constantly discovering new things and I have about four pages of collections unlocked. There are LOTS of sections of the map I haven’t been to yet (in fact I think I’ve only been to the center of the map and none of the outlying places) and I’m looking forward to exploring more. I can certainly see how those who want to could rush past the bulk of the game to hit level 20 in all of the jobs but I personally think they’d miss out on so much. There’s just so much to explore and discover.

I didn’t get any W101 gaming done yesterday, but hopefully I’ll get some time in today and manage to inch my way closer to owning a house. I think right now I’m about 2,000 gold away from purchasing one. Still no idea what sort of home I want though. I’m excited!

I hope everyone else had a fantastic weekend, and that this week is also great. Monday the 18th is a holiday here in Canada (Victoria Day) and if all goes well I’ll be taking a trip out to Upper Canada Village for some photography (I know, planning weekend trips when it’s only Monday is a bad idea). We’ll see how it goes!

See you in Norrath!

Gaming

Thuuga Quests, Cazic Thul, Vex Thal and Innoruuk

stargrace 1Comment

Yesterday was a fairly good Saturday as far as health concerns go, it’s getting less painful to breathe which is the main part. Hopefully a few more days and I’ll be back good as new. In the mean time I spent a little bit of the early afternoon finishing off my Thuuga quests for both the mystic and illusionist in EQ2. I was really glad to get those out of the way, though I should have finished them weeks (maybe even months) ago. The hardest part was waiting around for the named I needed to show up, and dragging both of my characters all through the Fens of Nathsar since neither of them have done any quests in the zone, didn’t have the sokokar posts, and were agro to all of the factions. Now both characters are sporting their fabled bits, and I’m glad it’s done.

Afterwards Wpus and I decided to head back to EQ for a little while, and I had an absolute blast.

Blackburrow and Cazic Thul were revamped not too long ago (three weeks maybe?) and so we headed to Cazic Thul first to check out the zone. There were 20 people camping but we managed to find ourselves a little niche to hang out in without too much traffic. Wpus brought along a tank mercenary and I dragged along my healer. I only have one of my EQ accounts open so I couldn’t box, but it was still a lot of fun. I managed to get a very awesome pair of shoes for the necromancer, you may remember the original pair.

They have a nice clicky effect on them, and they can also be traded which is nice. The same named also dropped a cleric only primary, which I tucked away for later. Not sure if it will be worth anything on the broker, but one never knows I suppose.

After we decided to head to the Plane of Hate to see of Innoruuk was home – which he was. We had no idea if we’d be able to take him down just the two of us with two mercenary (especially since we had no idea what his ‘thing’ was that he did during fights) and we came SO close to defeating him, it was painful. We managed to get the fake Innoruuk down easily enough and then the real version spawned in the room down below. The problem with mercenary is that they’re not very good at managing their mana, and my healer seemed to drop faster then normal. Innoruuk was down to 14% before we wiped (well, I died, the monk feigned) and we figured we’d just give it another shot. I made my way back to the zone, and JUST before I got to his room (he was at about 20% health) he poofed.

Ack!

Ah well, maybe we will get another chance to take him down.

We were also unaware as to whether or not the fabled events had been completed – all of the celebration decorations are still up in EQ as well as the quests. Asking on channels received no reply at first. We figured they were down, I saw no fabled at all in my brief travels and when we headed to Umbral Plains to farm a few named for alts, there were no fabled there either. We took down Rumblecrush (I think that’s his name) and a few others before deciding to head into Vex Thul for no other reason then I had never been there before.

The courtyard is beautiful. I’d love to own a copy of the statue posted above for my house in EQ2. You can only get so far in the zone (which is not far at all) without a rogue to let you in, so I quickly relogged to Invis (my 73 rogue) and opened the doors. As we checked on various named (Vex has always been heavily camped) we came across not one but TWO fabled.

Odd.

Asking in channels again explained what was going on. Mobs were no longer *spawning* as fabled, but if there happened to be fabled up, they would remain up until the next server re-set. Aww. There had been a few fabled items that I wanted to get last time that I never got. At least I got the fabled gate necklace before it ended.

After our exploration of Vex Thul I decided to call it a night. I had been feeling relatively good all day and didn’t want to jinx myself by staying up too late or anything like that. I gated back home and headed to bed. It was still a fantastic night though and I had a lot of fun.

Don’t forget today is Mother’s Day (like anyone could forget) and I hope all the Mom’s out there have a fantastic day. See you in Norrath!

Gaming

Lavastorm Changes, and Levels are Gained

stargrace 2Comments

I spent most of yesterday evening hanging out with Kiara and others on a guided tour of the new (EQ2) Lavastorm revamp, and then working on a future article for MMORPG.com about said revamp –  it was loads of fun! If you’re interested in seeing the changes for yourself you can always head on over to the test server and take a peek, or you can read all about the changes that are coming in the spoilers that have been released on the EQ2players site. You can find the lore behind the events, what’s new with crafting, the new solo content (for levels 45-55), as well as a little glimpse into the 12-person raid zone, Ward of the Elements. There is so much more coming aside from these things though, if you (like me) don’t have the patience to wait for the update it’s certainly worth checking into. 

While I was doing that on my PC (always the multi-tasker) the laptop had my necromancer hanging out in Dreadspire with Ultann and Ninga, who were busy grinding experience. We were later met up with a beastlord friend of theirs who joined in the fun. Since I was mostly AFK while they were doing their thing I missed out on a great deal of the excitement (not to mention conversations) but everyone seemed to have a good time none the less. Oh, and my necromancer managed to hit level 76, and now she’s 60% into that level! 

The enchanter also hit level 74, though I didn’t box yesterday aside from a brief bit later, so she’s not very far into it. The leveling has slowed down a considerable amount, but it’s about what I expected for these levels. I hear the grind from 80-85 is a lot worse, I’m still looking forward to it because to me that’s what EQ always was. Grinding out levels with great friends, and it’s comforting to know it hasn’t changed all that much. 

Once the levels were earned we decided (for fun) to head back to the Guk LDoN raid zone – the zone had hurt pretty bad last time we were there. This time we dragged along the beastlord and every named within fell to us. For a level 65 zone, it was difficult, even for us ranging from level 74-80+ one of the encounters was level 80, and all of the encounters had mean nasty dots that liked to trigger and send my poor girls spinning into low health. Thankfully we had Nocbot around who provided some wonderful heals, and Ninga who was great DPS. I am always in so much awe as I watch everyone fall naturally into their roles in game. It’s a fantastic sight. 

I hope everyone else had an amazing time as well, and that this Thursday is great no matter what game you find yourself in. See you in Norrath!

Gaming

List of current EverQuest Veteran Rewards

stargrace 0Comment

I have long been a fan of how EverQuest, EverQuestII, and Vanguard all reward their veteran players each year. Some times the rewards are more useful then others. Out of all three games that I play I find the ones in EverQuest to be the most helpful. The topic of veteran rewards came up in discussion yesterday as my trio was playing, so I decided to look up what the current veteran rewards are. 

You can find a list of them here, on the EverQuest tip of the week news archives. 

 

1st year – Lesson of the Devoted:
The player is surrounded by a beautiful blue/white glow as they gain double experience for half an hour every 20 hours.

2nd year – Infusion of the Faithful:
The player enjoys maximum resistances and statistics and a faster run speed for 15 minutes while he glows brightly with power. Usable once every 20 hours.

3rd year – Chaotic Jester:
Summons a Bristlebane puppet that persists for 15 minutes and will randomly cast various spells that provide benefits or minor penalties. Usable once every 20 hours.

4th year- Expedient Recovery:
All the player’s corpses are summoned to their feet and given 100% experience resurrection if they are still eligible. Usable once per week.

5th year – Steadfast Servant:
Summons a creature that casts healing spells upon the player and others nearby. Lasts for half an hour or until you zone. Usable once every 20 hours.

6th year – Staunch Recovery:
The player is healed with health, mana, and endurance fully restored. Usable once every 3 days.

7th year – Intensity of the Resolute:
Surrounds the player in a glow of energy and increases the power of the player’s melee abilities, spells and heals substantially for 1 minute. Usable once every 4 hours.

8th year – Throne of Heroes:
The player is teleported to the Throne of Heroes in the Guild Lobby. Usable every 72 minutes.

9th Year – Armor of Experience:
The player is granted several layers of protection from harm for 90 seconds or 10 strikes. This protection lessens as you take more damage. Usable once every 20 hours.

10th Year – Resupply Agent:
Summons a mechanical merchant to the player’s side who sells supplies and buys loot. He will stay up for 10 minutes or until dismissed by the player. Usable once every 20 hours.

 

The rewards from EQ2 include things like experience potions (that have a time range before they expire so it’s not exactly an endless supply), little appearance things (fairy that sits on your shoulder) and items along those lines. The five year reward also gave you an object that you could use once a week that would replenish your vitality – adventure vitality only. Still handy to have. 

The rewards from Vanguard include a lot of house items (which look incredible) and experience potions, as well as unique titles. Each furniture bundle consists of items from a particular race, with a distinctive look (which I adore). 

It’s these little things in game that I absolutely adore. While people were upset when the living legacy seemed to mainly reward new players and returning players and leave those veterans out in the lurch, it’s nice to see some sort of ‘thank you’ for being loyal to a game. Especially this day in age when everyone is bouncing all over the place playing multiple games for short amounts of time and never really settling (I can be blamed for doing this as well). 

Anyhow, hopefully everyone had an amazing weekend gaming this weekend and playing whatever game (if any) currently hold your attention. See you in Norrath!

« Previous Page — Next Page »

You Missed

Gaming

Big Updates in Wurm Online

Gaming

Player Housing? FINALLY

Gaming WoW Gold Making

Am I Still Making Gold in Warcraft?

EVE Gaming

The Search For Hrada-Oki Bivouac 

Nomadic Gamer