EQ

Beginning Again, on Drinal #EverQuest #EQ

stargrace February 28, 2013 0Comment

The more we played on FV, the more we realized that perhaps this server just wasn’t for us. One of the appealing things about Drinal (the server that I currently play on as my main) is that you’ll see people mention XYZ item is rotting in 123 zone, and players are free to come loot it. It’s very rare to see items selling for extreme amounts of money. On FV because the server has unique rule sets that allows for the trading of no-trade items, EVERYTHING is for sale, and there’s a lot of money floating around.

The down side is that there were easily 400+ people on during my play time, where as Drinal had around 200-300 in general channel. Still, that could also be a good thing, as it means that there’s a chance I may be able to get a few named and a few camps that are not already taken over by people.

So the decision was made, we would re-create new characters on Drinal, and start over. I have a lot of characters there already so switching wasn’t that big of a deal. I do have a 58 beastlord, but I’ll be replacing her with the new one I created.

We decided once more to skip the tutorial. I’m just not fond of it. Headed to Crescent Reach and spent the evening there taking down bears, pumas, spiders, and other nasty creatures. Before we knew it we were level 18 – which is a great chunk towards the level 47 that our previous characters were at. We also managed to get a lot more loot this time around, which I think is fantastic.

Being on Drinal has a few advantages, like the fact that my mains are here and I’ve done a lot of crafting over the years. I’ll be able to make backpacks, and jewelry, and other bits and bobs if I choose to. I have a keen interest in making racial armor for the beastlord, so I’ll be starting on that eventually. It’s also nice to be home. We’ll be looking for a new guild to join with our low level characters, and I’m excited about that. While the server may not be as populated as FV, there’s still a great number of folks playing, especially for a game that is 14 years old.

As always, happy gaming! No matter where you find yourself.

Dranik’s Scar Adventures #EverQuest #EQ

stargrace February 26, 2013 0Comment

Dranik Scar came out with Omens of War, and it’s one of my favorite expansions. For some reason I thought that the zone was higher level than it is, my beastlord headed there at 40 because it’s the hotzone. A few rats and bats later, as well as a noc or two, and both beastlord and shadowknight are sitting at a very comfortable level 45. We’re almost ready to start working on AA.

When we first chose FV as a server Oger looked for a guild to join. Our first choice was Insanity, the name really represented the guild – and that’s not a good thing. Chatter was filled with a lot of conversations that I just wasn’t personally comfortable with. Lasted a day there before we moved on to Sentinels of Truth. This guild is incredibly friendly, and VERY active, when we logged in last night there were close to 20 others on doing things. Not bad for a Monday night. As EverQuest nears its 14th anniversary I expect those numbers will go up slightly.

I’m incredibly excited to be playing during the 14th anniversary. I’ve always loved all of the events, and having fabled drop in zones again is pretty neat. I told Oger we’ll have to go hunting for low level fabled gear for our characters.

One thing I completely forgot is that this server is FV, with its own rules. So when I out leveled a piece of defiant gear I had been deleting it if it didn’t sell to vendor. WRONG thing to do! Even though gear says you can attune it, on FV you don’t attune gear. So nothing is no-trade. Gear is re-useable! I’m going to try to keep that in the forefront of my mind today as we play. I can pass it off to alts, or sell it at the bazaar.

Speaking of, I actually sold a few hundred plat worth of items yesterday, yay! Mercenaries are paid for a bit longer. I also picked up a few pieces of gear to fill out the missing slots I have, although I DO still want to get into crafting. It may be easier when I’m higher level and have an easier time of harvesting bits. We’ll see I suppose.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

The Great Divide #EverQuest #EQ

stargrace February 25, 2013 2Comments

It was time to move on from Blightfire Moors, and explore a ‘new’ zone. Well. Not especially new, but new to these characters at least! The next zone we headed off to was The Great Divide, which is a great little zone. It was time to smack down some Frost Giants, and smack down we did.

There’s only one issue we’re running into lately, and that is we’re almost leveling too fast. By the end of the night my beastlord was sitting at a comfortable level 37. She’s missing a lot of gear, and I haven’t purchased my spells since 30 or so. I did pick up my pet at 30 but I didn’t stock pile on anything past that. Technically I didn’t really need to. The mercenaries are holding their own, we have one dps (melee I believe) mercenary, and I also have a healer one. So while I’m not doing a lot of damage at the moment, it’s not noticeable. Leveling so quickly on a new server where we’ve nothing to our names is also proving to be an expensive endeavor. Mercenaries are almost 10 plat every 15 minutes now. I’m baffled at how a new player would be able to afford them for very long especially not knowing locations to spend grinding.

I have managed to sell a few pieces of gear at the bazaar in offline mode, which I really like. It’s not much, but it’s a start. When I watch general channel it amuses me to see pieces selling for multiple MILLIONS of platinum. I’m unsure if that’s because this is FV, or if it’s like that on all servers. On my home server of Drinal I don’t remember seeing people charging millions of plat for an item.

I still haven’t gotten into crafting yet, but I do want to. I’ve been selling bits and bobs to vendor for now, I figure I have lots of time to farm the materials I need to level over 50. I’m thinking of starting with food and drink to start, as it would be very helpful for our characters to be able to afford good food and drink. I may work towards tailoring from that, and in specific the barbarian cultural armor. It would be neat to be able to afford my own gear. Since it’s been so long since I’ve worked on any of that, we’ll just have to see.

Time for More of Blightfire Moors #EverQuest #EQ

stargrace February 24, 2013 0Comment

Crescent Reach was starting to look a little small, most of the encounters were blue or easier, so the decision was made to head to Blightfire Moors, which is also a hot zone. This zone is packed full of snakes, shrubs, and prowling cats. We set up a camp near the entrance to begin with, and picked off bog rats and rats until we completed two simple quests that were on a sign just outside Crescent Reach. Turning them in didn’t net very much experience, but it was still better than nothing.

Eventually we moved on to a small camp of gnolls. These came in packs of three and we were almost defeated numerous times but some how managed to pull through by the skin of our teeth. Leveling was going really well, and before I knew it my Barbarian Beastlord was 20, along with the shadowknight.

Once we had our fill of gnolls, we moved on to some wild cats. These were far too tough for us. They are social and before we knew it we had about 10 cats chasing us around. Poor Oger fell to their vicious bites twice, while I ran away like a chicken to the nearest zone line. Always saving myself. Thankfully I also had the healer mercenary, so I came back and gave him a rez. After two wipes at this camp we decided to move on to killer shrubs.

The shrubs were also social but easier to handle even when they conned red. A few more dings, and we both found ourselves sitting at level 25. Only 75 more levels to go before we reach the current EverQuest cap of 100.

I decided to explore the bazaar a bit, it has changed over the years. You can now set up a trader in offline mode, but it doesn’t work the way I thought it would. What you do is set yourself up with trader satchels like you would if you were staying online, and when you click the trader window to offline mode, it kicks you from the game. You are only allowed to have 1 character total per account in offline mode, and you can’t be connected to the game while you are offline selling. So it’s great before you go to bed, or if you’re going to work for the day, but not if you want to be around in-game or on another character. I haven’t checked to see if I’ve sold anything yet, but a handful of plat would be nice because mercenary costs are going up. I’m now up to over 2 plat every 15 minutes to hire one.

Even though I’ve “started over” on a new server, veteran players are at a significant  advantage over a brand new player. See, veterans earn loyalty points the longer their accounts are active, and I’ve racked up over 5,000 of these points. You can use them to purchase bags of plat, gear, a character slot, and house items as well as a handful of other things. I love loyalty points and I think it’s a great motivational tool to keep your loyal customers feeling special. I did spend 500 points on a bag of platinum, and received 17,000 plat. That goes towards keeping my mercenary paid for. I also had a mount in /claim and a package of level appropriate defiant gear in /claim, so I took advantage of those. I’m still missing a lot of gear, but I’m not wandering around the Moors naked any more at least.

I think the plan is to stay at the Moors for a bit longer and then move on. I’m also going to begin crafting in Crescent Reach with the ‘free’ crafting they have for players to work their way to 50 in all tradeskills for no cost. These mimic the quests you can do at Abysmal Sea. It may also be time to find a casual guild to join, we’ll just have to see.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

From 8 to 13 in Crescent Reach #EQ #EverQuest

stargrace February 22, 2013 1Comment

Crescent Reach, our home away from home once the tutorial was completed. Now, I know traditionally you would start in your race specific home cities, but this day in age you can choose between that city and Crescent Reach, which has a lot of nice beginner quests and is relatively close to POK and other amenity, so that’s where we started out. The evening began at level 8, I had just picked up my very first pet spell. I finally felt like a beastlord. We decided to explore a bit and picked up a variety of level 1 quests that are available. This is also a new thing for EQ, as most of the game was played without any quests at all, and certainly not a quest journal (you can access it via alt + q) detailing all the steps. It felt a bit weird not scribbling down directions on scraps of paper that I would quickly lose.

The quests didn’t reward much experience, but we did rack up a handful of plat which was important to me because spells are going to get pretty expensive. We also got a few odds and ends of gear, although I’m still sporting a club I found on the ground. Because we’re starting over on a new server we’ve got no coin, and being able to afford spells later on may become an issue. Oger also realized he was going to need bone chips to summon his skeleton pet, so we spent some time collecting that.

Finally it was time to burn lesson and get a few levels. We’re still working on the bears and pumas, but eventually graduated to the harder skeletons and alligators. I almost thought I was going to get a new beastlord weapon (remember, when a mob is holding a weapon you can physically see it in a lot of  cases) but it ended up being a quest piece instead. Hopefully I have a bit more luck getting a weapon tomorrow.

By the end of the experience buff running out we were 13, I had a bunch of new spells, and also a handful of hero’s forge armor. This stuff is for appearance slots that EQ added not too long ago. The problem is you have to unlock the ability to wear hero’s forge armor per character, via the marketplace. I have not yet decided if I’m going to unlock it on this new character, but it’s looking like I probably will. I have a surplus of station cash at the moment, and I do like the gear. I’m just reluctant because it’s per character, and I’ve already purchased the ability to wear appearance gear on a character that I haven’t been playing.

I’m looking forward to moving out of Crescent Reach and onto a new zone. I haven’t any idea what the hotzones are these days, but I do plan on looking into it. That will probably be the next adventure, we’ll just have to see!

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.