eq

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!

Trip to San Diego – Part III

I’m still processing the trip down to San Diego, mostly because I haven’t had the time (yet) to sit down and just reflect on it. As soon as I landed back home  (pretty much) I was thust head first into writing 6 articles (that are due tomorrow) and I also came down with a horrible cold that’s left me sounding like a frog and sneezing every 10 minutes with a cough. I know I’ll be feeling back to my normal self in no time, but you’ll have to forgive the lack of posts on my site in the mean time. 

Picture is a member of the EverQuest team, showing off his sponge bob pillow. I actually took this particular picture for my Mom who is an avid fan. There’s another picture with a project that he was working on, but I’m saving that for Beckett (I know, what a tease). 

So what exactly did I do for my day in San Diego? It was pretty amazing and surreal for me on a very personal level. I was up at 3am on Tuesday the 3rd of February. Headed to the Ottawa International Airport where I flew from Ottawa at 6am to Detroit. Switched plains in Detroit to Minneapolis and then flew from Minneapolis to San Diego. I landed at around 1pm, grabbed a taxi to my suite which was pretty close to the SOE studio, and waited for a room. By the time I got settled all I wanted to do was let everyone know I was safe and sound, and sleep. So the night ended early for me at 8:30pm PST. Remember, this trip also takes place after two very stressful weeks of getting my passport organized, and was very short notice for me. I still had a blast.

The next day at 9:30am I was met in the lobby by Katie, who is the public relations person for SOE and who I get to annoy on a regular basis. We drove to the SOE studio which is fairly close to where I was staying. The day was absolutely amazing, bright sunshine and no snow. I ogled all of the palm trees that I’ve never seen before. The landscape is completely different from what I’m used to. I’ve seen hills and mountains before when I lived in Germany, but Ottawa is fairly flat and our houses sit on flat streets, not up the sides of hills one under another. I was feeling pretty nervous, but calmed down as the day went on.

I had a brief tour of the SOE buildings, I’d looked at older pictures trying to get a feel for the layout and recognize where I was. My first round of meetings was with the EQ1 team, some absolutely amazing people. I spoke with Alan Couvering, Adam Bell, and Ed Hardin. The passion they demonstrated for their game was just mind boggling. It’s not something I’ll soon forget. Anyone who has read my Beckett articles before knows that I don’t exactly write from an investigative journalism point of view, but I write as a gamer first and try to keep that theme throughout everything I write. Having the opportunity to talk to these people who created the games I love in such a setting was fantastic. 

Afterwards I spoke with the EQ2 team – Bruce Ferguson, Joy Parks, Noel Walling, Tim Heydelaar, Bill Yeats, and Joshua Kriegshauser. Again they displayed the same amount of passion that the EQ1 team had for their game, and the comradery displayed was fantastic. I also spoke with Rich Waters, who is the creative director for the EQ Franchise, and then it was time for lunch.

Lunch was amazing. The community team consisting of Brenlo, Kiara, and Ashlanne (who you may recognize on forums and from Podcasts) were great. We went to a surf shack type place called ‘Hodads’ (I believe that’s the name at least) which was plastered on the inside with old license plates. The atmosphere was very laid back and easy going and the fact that I was eating lunch in San Diego in the sunshine and not home in Ottawa in the freezing temperatures with four feet of snow on the ground did not go unnoticed. We took a little walk down to the beach (not far away) and even had a little time to stop by a comic book store that was along the way back to the van. They were easy to talk to, joked around a lot, and I felt completely at ease. Once lunch was done it was time to get back to work and Lydia joined in the conversation. 

Once it was noticed that I also play Vanguard (and love the game despite the rocky launch and issues that still persist) I was granted an opportunity to talk to the VG team, something I had not planned for. This was probably one of the most fantastic parts of the trip, because it was just so odd for me. If you had of asked me a year ago if I thought I’d be talking (in person) to Silius (Salim Grant, lead designer) I’d have laughed so hard milk would have shot out my nose even if I wasn’t drinking milk. I remember seeing the NPC version of his character in game outside the crafting area in the high elf place. I remember seeing him on Seradon on the craft channel, and I even own (or rather, my bloodmage owns) the craft bag named after him. You can flag me as a fan and I’m perfectly ok with it. I didn’t just speak with him though, I also got to talk to Christian Akesson (VGThor, Lead artist), and Thom Terrazas (Phathom, producer). VG is one of those diamond in the rough games (for me at least) and to watch other people who actually worked on the game talk about it to me was just so inspiring. I can not even put it into words. 

By the end of the day I was exhausted (again) and Katie brought me back to my suite where I crashed for the night at 8:30. I would be flying out at 10:30am, and wanted to be at the airport early so I could go through security and all the rest. 

At 7am I headed back to the airport, where I flew from San Diego to LA (short flight), and then from LA to Detroit, and finally from Detroit back home. It was 11pm EST by the time I finally got home, back to the wind and snow and negative temperatures. 

Another huge thank you to the people from SOE for flying me out and granting me the opportunity, as well as Beckett MOG since I was there to do work for them. My friends were absolutely amazing (and continue to be) and supportive while I ranted about all of the stress I was feeling and my excitement as I went through this whole process. It’s been an incredible rush. 

Now that I’m home and settled, I have three more pieces to write for Beckett and then I can get back to what brought me here in the first place – gaming! See you in Norrath.

Good Friends, Good Fun

Last night was another one of those “hmm I want to play, but what do I actually want to DO tonight” sort of nights. They happen and there’s nothing wrong with that. I started out in EQ2, where out of the blue Mayadhros logged in! I thought he was lost, gobbled up by some sand creature, or perhaps wandering the void for all eternity. After hugs and “wow you’re BACK?!” congratulations were passed around I took him on a tour of the guildhall, making sure that he picked up the ‘recall to guild hall’ for easier access next time. There’s a definite sense of accomplishment when I get to show someone the work we all put into it, and knowing how much it cost us in both status and coin. I think Mayadhros needed a moment to pop his eyes back into his skull when I told him how much it had cost us, what our weekly rent was, and how much people had generously donated to our escrow. 

Aside from wandering around and chattering, and a few random decorating bits I didn’t actually get too much done in EQ2. That’s alright though, some times it’s nice to just take a night off and enjoy socializing. I did spend the afternoon doing all of the Halloween goodies – as a side note, there are treasure chests apparently in the haunted houses where you can select masks. I did not know that! I’ve been trying for a bandit mask forever now, with no luck. My gaming motto tends to always be if I didn’t have bad luck I’d have no luck at all.

After running around EQ2 for a fair amount I decided I would log into EQ1 with Kanad for a bit and try to level Qutey up some. That’s my little halfling druid who had been level 59 for some time now. I rented a Dark Elf tank and we headed to Plane of Storms, camping in a little area of the desert. There was a 64 druid camping in around the same area and it seemed like every time we moved the druid was sure to follow. PoS is a hot zone and the experience was amazing. In the hour and a half we stayed there I managed to ding Qutey to level 60, as well as 80% into her level. Now I did use my veteran reward that doubles my exp gain and that helped a whole lot, but still. GREAT experience. 

The only downside to PoS is that the loot is not so great. We did end up looting two pieces of defiant armor (not into the elaborate tier yet) and we gathered about 7 pieces of trash loot. The great thing is that the 7 pieces of trash loot were enough to pay off the cost of renting out the tank for the evening. It wasn’t enough to cover the initial purchase of the mercenary, but it was enough to cover the 14p every 15 minute upkeep. Since I leveled, the merc is now dark blue to me – but since I plan on hanging around PoS for a while yet, and it was tanking just fine, I don’t think I need to upgrade it for a few more levels. This tank for some reason only had 6k hp or so (granted they didn’t have cleric buffs and were two levels lower then Ellithia’s Vah Shir tank pictured above) but they did seem to do more dps then the Vah Shir tank. I’m not sure if I accidentally chose a different setting (I don’t believe I did) or if maybe the different races have different attributes (which would be cool and also confusing when it came to picking one). The Vah Shir had about 12k or so hp as a level 61 tank, kills were a little slow though. The Dark Elf tank only had 6k or so hp total, but the dps seemed increased. Could have just been my imagination I suppose.

All in all it was a great night and I’m looking forward to Nostalgia meeting up tomorrow. I’m installing EQ1 on the laptop right now so I can set up a trader to sell while I’m not using the account. Some how I need to make money for spells as well as money for mercs and my enchanter (who happens to be my master jeweler as well as my spell maker) is on the closed account. Woopsie.

What are You Waiting For?!

For those who may not know (and I bet there are a lot of you) Beckett MOG (Massive Online Gamer) is a magazine that comes out once every 2 months and is filled with all sorts of mmo goodies. For issue 15 (which is set to hit stores on the 24th I believe – but if you have a subscription you would have already gotten it) there were some new writers that the blogger community may recognize. 

One of which was none other then Tipa, who I am of course always in awe of. You can find her article on the SOE Fan Faire in this issue – so be sure to buy it! 

Along with Tipa’s words of wisdom are some articles that I was lucky enough to write for Beckett – including a Veeshan’s Peek dungeon guide, a class guide on EQ2 bards, an exclusive interview about guildhalls, and one on the EQ2 and EQ1 expansions being released. These are my first publications ever and yes, I will admit right now I am shamelessly plugging them and hope readers may even subscribe to Beckett eager for the next issues. Arrogant? No way, I had a LOT of fun writing these, and I’m just a little bit giddy to see my name in print. You’ve got to realize, that I’m a pretty small time person, I don’t consider my site one of the ‘top ones’ out there at all. So this is a huge accomplishment for me and I can only hope that it leads to more writing opportunities. 

So what are you waiting for? Go pick up issue #15 of Beckett MOG, and read up on all the goodies in there. A huge thank you to Kasul also for scanning in each one of the pictures for me since my copy here in Canada will be a while getting here. Also in this issue is a FREE EQ2 house item (and one for WAR too, if the EQ2 one doesn’t sway you) limited editions so go go go… 

Wow, I almost felt dirty writing that whole post, but I’m honestly too excited to care.

Edit: As a side note that I wanted to mention – it is honestly thanks to every single other blogger out there that I write as much as I do. It’s inspiration from those around me that contributes more then anyone will ever know, so thank you!

Fun in RunnyeyeII

It’s not too often I play my warden any more, for a few reasons. I suppose the main one would be that they’re exceptionally common in game. Everyone and their dog seems to have one tucked away if for nothing more then porting purposes. They’re also one of the easiest healers to play (I’ve played them all) and while they have very little in the way of hp or mitigation buffs (we leave that to the clerics) their heal over time (HoT) are fantastic.

So when an RE2 (RunnyeyeII) group came up with a few friends, of course I jumped at the chance, even though I was off playing some other game (I know, how dare I). It was a group of people that I’ve played with before on numerous occasions, so I wasn’t too worried. At first I was going to join on my troubador, but we really needed more dps (the group consisted of: Inquisitor, Shadowknight, Warlock, Illusionist, Defiler, and myself as Troubador to start). I switched out for the warden and the defiler switched out to his main, a ranger.

We had two deaths total in the zone, and an extra one for me who got pummeled by an AoE on incoming. We pulled the last encounter flawlessly, and during the run the fabled fighter cloak dropped, which of course went to the shadownight who had been running the zone constantly since it released, waiting for that drop.

We transmuted just about everything in the zone, 9 legendary total. Two master chests dropped, the fighter ring also dropped and no one could use it so it went to an alt. I did get Arysh an upgrade to her helm, so I was happy. Though it was painful to transmute all of the items that my troubador could have used. The evening was relaxing and friendly, we talked away on the EQII voice chat and had a pretty good time.

I’ve been falling behind in my crafting, and I’m hoping to spend some time fixing that. This week in particular is going to be hellish though, so we’ll just have to see. Nostalgia is going to meet again on Thursday, this time for some Plane of Hate fun. I hope to get in game and delevel Ellithia the remaining two levels, and perhaps work at getting a few more aa on Qutey and Nala before then. Again it depends on this week though, lots of things coming up.

Nomadic Gamer