guild level

Congratulations, on Everything!

The guild had been sitting at level 39 for a few days now – so close and yet so far to three new amenity. Later in the afternoon, Wpus and I decided we would start to grind writs in order to gain that level finally. Ultann came home from work and logged in to help, and as we were a smidgen away from level 40, Hamal also logged in to help! It was great. Our guild consists of 5 people total, four of us are regulars as Calreth is away during the week for work, so we’re not a large guild (nor do we have any desire to be, there’s a reason we’re this small). Now that we’ve reached level 40, I don’t miss the guild level on Kithicor quite so much. This level opened up a lot to us, including three new amenity, and a new row of guild bank usage.

As for amenity, so far we have:

Recall to guild hall, Druid ports, Shattered lands bell, Broker, Banker, Merchant, a craft supply box and for our three new ones we purchased a rush order writ giver, a fuel merchant, and a mender. I believe we’re going to work on getting the harvesting NPC’s next once we hit 45, and that will put us on par with the guild we left behind. None of us are regretting our decision to move to Antiona Bayle, and while at times it is very bumpy, we seem to be settling in.

Since it is a rare occurrence these days that we’re all on at the same time we decided to take full advantage of it and head to a few instances. First on our list was Evernight Abby. This is an instance that we can easly do with just the four of us, I boxed my coercer and Ultann boxed his inquisitor. Nothing of note dropped, but at least it was a shard to add to the collection. Afterward we decided to head to Ravenscale Repository, which is the most difficult of the three Loping Plains TSO instances. I had never actually been there before, though the others had. This is a zone we can not box in, so we picked up an illusionist and an inquisitor from outside of guild.

The downside to looking for group members, especially for this type of zone is that when Wpus was sending tells to players LFG – most of them replied with “are you going to be able to clear it, because I don’t want to waste my time other wise”. What ever happened to a players sense of adventure? How do you ever get to know what your limits are if you’re not always constantly pushing them? We were exceptionally disappointed with the results from looking for more to add to the group – but at least we found people. We’re not poor players by any means but that doesn’t mean we should have to ‘sell’ ourselves as gamers when we’re simply looking to add two more members to the group.

As it turned out the run was pretty much flawless. We wiped once on the massive encounter that involves a number of named, there’s pretty much nothing at all you can do during that fight (especially since I was playing my mystic) except heal your little heart out. We had the enchanter lock one down, tried to root one in the corner, and took them out in order. The illusionist went down twice but I managed to rez them. Fantastic work by all, and it was a lot of fun. Compared to everyone else, I was VERY under geared on my mystic. The shadowknight (Ultann), assassin (Hamal), inquisitor, and illusionist all had their mythical and were wearing raid gear. My mystic is wearing T2 gear, and her fabled epic, her jewelery is quite poor as well. Those are things I want to work on, but I find it hard. Speaking of which, I am contemplating moving my mystic over to my main account, and closing down my 2nd account. I haven’t really been in the mood to box, and there is nothing else on my 2nd account of note aside from that one mystic. However, my character slots are full on my main account, with all level 80’s. I could get station access to try to open it up, but I’m reluctant to do that. Something to think about in any case.

Tonight will be Venril Sathir on my troubador, and this weekend I’ll be heading to Ward of Elements (my first visit), both of which I am looking forward to (even though VS has been nerfed and is quite easy now). Hopefully I’ll get to take a few screen shots, and post all about it!

Thursday! Only one more day to go. Happy gaming everyone, and see you in Norrath!

Vyemm falls, and the Guild Levels

There was a pick up raid last night headed to Labs, you know that old Kingdom of Sky zone off of Bonemire, the one with Vyemm at the end. I remember that zone fondly, even though I’ve probably wiped more times there then anywhere else. I remember that zone mostly because it’s where I first discovered that I actually liked raiding, and I was good at it. I had applied to Second Dawn on Najena, who were (at the time) the best raid guild across all servers. It’s funny how things change, now Second Dawn isn’t even around any more, having moved servers and merged into another guild. Anyhow, the pick up raid was only looking for healers and Torrent Knights (ie: guild of three plus one plus one!) were out in full force (minus Calreth who is back to his army job) so we decided to head to Labs ourselves just the four of us and see what damage could ensue.

I’ll admit, I had my doubts. I have a bad habit of disliking things that are new or that I consider above us (ie: way too hard). I’m not sure why, it’s sort of ground into my play style. I try to work on it but it’s a slow process. Anyhow, I was confident that we could clear the zone, but I had wiped so many times on Vyemm himself (and we would have to tank both him and Prime at the same time) that I was leery.

I shouldn’t have been.

The entire zone melted before us like hot butter. Thanks to Kasul, Ultann, and Wpus we probably had more dps in those three then an entire raid would have back in KoS. We looted a lot of neat (trash) items, Ultann got his fabled shadowknight helm, the enchanter helm dropped (which I didn’t role for because I brought the dirge to Labs for stoneskin) and a lot of other random items. We were there for one thing in particular, the crate containing Vyemms head, to add to our guild hall collection.

We’re down two trophies at the moment, Darathar and Vox, because my paladin Sharatan placed those two over on Kithicor. Since she didn’t make the move over to Antonia Bayle, they’re still there. Kasul needs to kill Darathar, so it’s not too big of a deal, and I’ve taken to camping Vox in Permafrost to see if we can’t get the old girl to give us her crate. This being a heavily populated server I imagine it will take a lot of camping.

These trophies are quite common now, some people even sell them and place them in your hall for you – but for me personally each one tells a story. We have Gynok which was a bug, it dropped from the Befallen group instance instead of from the raid encounter shortly after trophies were put in, and we also have Godking Anuk, which was our first time in the raid zone and we had no idea what to expect, grayed out or not.

The old Vox trophy was something I tanked on my paladin, petrified that we would wipe. Our Darathar trophy was the first time we did an extended chain as a guild, and visited the Isle of Refuge that players typically skip these days because it is in dire need of a revamp after the newer zones released (TD, Neriak, and Greater Faydark). These are stories I won’t soon forget, and it’s all part of why I love going after the trophies and why I take so much pride in them.

Aside from our glorious defeat of Vyemm – the guild reached level 35, freeing up two more amenity for use. We purchased the shattered lands bell which is an exceptionally vital amenity we have all discovered, and we also purchased a merchant that we can finally sell all of our status items and other random tidbits to. At level 40 (which we should reach without too much difficulty) we will be able to purchase a mender, a fuel merchant, and a writ merchant, bringing us close to where our previous guild was. Plus it will give us another row of guild bank space, which is never a bad thing.

I wanted to send out some hugs and hellos to those who have sent me tells (specifically Ellithia) over the last few days introducing themselves as readers of the blog! I really appreciate the comments, and I hope everyone is doing fantastic, and that the server treats you all well (especially if you’re newcomers). I have met so many wonderful people lately, it’s fantastic. If you send a tell and I seem to not reply, please don’t take it personally chances are I’m boxing and have simply forgotten to stick the AFK tag up on the healer.

Today is Thursday, which is great. I need to get a bunch of Wizard 101 game time in, hopefully that will come this weekend. My little wizards have been having a blast exploring through the new world. Despite the fact that I’ve been writing about EQ2 pretty much none stop, I am still playing other games! I’m still recuperating from being sick for so long (no news yet, sighs) and it’ll take a while but I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things.

Happy gaming, and I’ll see you in Norrath!