Take a peek over on the EQ2 site to see some awesome new things coming with GU51! They include everything from new bases that can be crafted for those awesome guild hall trophies, to new recipe books with appearance armor! Not to mention RED SHINY!
Read more about it over here!
Looking forward to this update, that’s for sure.
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.
Collecting void shards is my mystics new hobby. Why? Because the gear from TSO (even the T1 gear) is a huge upgrade over the crafted pieces she’s wearing. I managed to save up enough shards before she hit 80 to make myself the hat (I have the recipe books at least!) and then today after a few rounds of instances I had enough to make the pants. I tend to be one of those ‘list’ people who write lists for everything, so of course I wrote down which pieces I have that still need to get upgrades.
Chest, Shoulders, Gloves, Shoes, Earring (one), Ring (two), and bracelets.
Plus my epic. Ok so there’s a lot of work to be done, but hey isn’t that why I play this game anyhow? To further and progress my character alongside of amazing friends and have wonderful encounters in game.
That being said, the TSO instances in the commonlands fell to the group I was in early this morning, and yesterday included a romp through Chelsith. A lot of people don’t especially care for that zone (going off of 70-79 chatter) and I’m not sure why. It could be due to the length it takes to clear it, but I enjoy it quite a bit.
I had my 71 coercer in tow (mostly for power regen while I healed) and she dinged 72. I’m still contemplating working up a bard (dirge) but I haven’t gotten very far with it yet.
I also managed to find a little time to play LoTRO, creating a character on Tipa’s server so I could play with the group she has going there. Hopefully I can find a little more time and catch up to the rest of them! Short post today as I’ve got to get a bunch of things done, but there’s a rumor on the forums that the GU with the fighter changes is tentatively scheduled for the 3rd of February, I’m actually looking forward to it. That should also add the Valentine items to the game, which means – you guessed it – more house item!
Another run at Fear (no choker for the summoner yet) and another run at Vault (no guard) but my 79 mystic hit level 80! This is a bit of a milestone for me. Not because I don’t already have level 80 characters (I now have 6) but because she’s the only level 80 on my 2nd account. It means that the other characters will get at least a 10% bonus at all times. I realize it’s not THAT big of a deal, but hey every little bit counts. I’m thinking of leveling up my dirge next, I’m not sure yet. I do need to work on the shaman’s gear.
Guild was nice and active yesterday, Hamal (new ranger) managed to get to level 32 (I believe?) with some help of 80’s mentoring, along with Dweezel who has so many alts with different renditions of his name I don’t have the faintest idea who he actually played in group. I want to say paladin but maybe that was the night before.
I also managed to create a few pieces of void shard gear for the mystic, you can start obtaining the basic void shard quests at level 75, level 79 for the daily double quest. Needless to say I had a nice little stash waiting for me. Since I barely did any RoK questing on her she still has a lot to do, but that can come in time. For now it’s just nice to be level 80.
I didn’t get anything done this weekend that I had set out to do, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Of course it means that now that the weekend is over I’ll have to get moving on stuff, but isn’t that what the weekdays are for to begin with?
Since I started playing on Kithicor I’ve noticed how prices can change drastically depending on server population. Antonia Bayle and Najena pricing are significantly lower then Kithicor and Oasis for example. AB and Najena are also far higher populated servers then the other two. On Kithicor things I put for sale (no matter the tier it seems) can sit, some times for a long period. On Najena where the market is constantly active things moved far quicker. This is neither good nor bad, just an observation.
I hope everyone else had an amazing weekend, no matter what game you played. I’m looking to get further into LoTRO, things lately have just been too hectic for me to stick to any more then one MMO. While I find that I work better under pressure, and I’m learning how to manage my time properly, it still leaves very little free time.
It was bound to happen, I could feel it. How long had it been since last time? Only a few months. Not even. It was like some disease slowly washing over me and I’d pick at it a little bit, and then a little bit more as time went on. No one who reads this site will be surprised, in fact I can hear Tipa shaking her head at me from here. That’s right, I did it.
I betrayed my level 79 defiler over to a mystic.
I had a good reason though! Well, I figured it was a good reason. I looked up the defiler epic quest (keeping in mind this will have been the 7th fabled epic I obtain) and then looked up the mystic fabled epic quest. Yup, that’s what I based my decisions off of. Without getting into too many details, I’m happy with the choice. Plus, who doesn’t like bolster?
This weekend has been one of the most relaxing days in a long time. Everything is out of my hands until Wednesday, and while I don’t know what the result is yet I needed these two days or I was going to go insane. So I’ve gamed, went out for some food, hung out with friends. The weekend has been great. The conjuror and shadowknight from guild and myself decided to trip Crypt of Agony, Vaults (in Jarsath Wastes), and Shard of Fear on Friday night. For laughs, we dragged along my (at the time) 68 coercer, more as a power bot then anything else (that’s her in the robe above). Because the coercer is on my main account with the other level 80’s, and had full vitality, she managed to ding level 70 in those instances, and a good portion into it. I decided she had gone long enough without her sokokar quest completed so those got taken care of.
The defiler mystic managed to snag four more void shards yesterday with relative ease, bringing the total up to 8. Since I’m not even level 80 yet I think that’s great. I’ll have some void gear waiting for me when I finally make it there. A slow process but I don’t mind. 50% away from level 80, and starting yet another epic. It’s going to be great.
Kasul also came to Kithicor to play for a little bit on a ranger alt he created, it was nice to have him meet the guild I’ve been playing with. There’s no way I can afford to move off of Najena especially since the automated transfer service is still down (le sigh) but kithicor has been a nice change of pace. Shadowgeist also moved off of Najena to join a new raid guild and I hope he’s doing fantastic there. I think it’s important for players to keep in mind (in any game, not just EQ2) that YOU pay your subscription fees (in most cases) and that means playing in the method that is best for you. Don’t feel bad if you decide to act on that, in the long run your gaming experiences will be far more fulfilled.
Safe travels!
stargrace