Leveling

Another Quiet Night

stargrace March 26, 2009 No Comments

I didn’t get a whole lot of time to game yesterday, I spent most of it working on an article for MMORPG.com, and the rest of it sending interview questions out to the folks at Wizard101, and a few EQ2 players (brigands and swashbucklers) for upcoming articles for Beckett MOG. When I finally did manage to log into EQ for a little bit before bed, I saw there was a guide event going on. Having been a guide myself for EQ2 I love seeing that things are still active, even if it’s not as active as it would have been in its prime. I think a lot about getting back into it – I miss it. I miss role playing as a guide. But, I don’t think I honestly have the time. So for now thinking about it is all I can do.

I cleaned out my banks which were a disaster, because the bank space is so very limited in EQ I end up spending a few hours every week doing this. Deciding what I should keep and what I should just throw away. Being a pack rat by nature is bad, especially when I try to keep every little bit of craft material that comes my way from multiple expansions because “I never know when it will come in handy” I have two craft supply holders I’ve created as well, just to pass materials off to. After I’d finally sorted out what was going where I headed to Stoneroot for a little bit of experience with Ultann and Ninga. Ultann ended up having to go AFK and after a short stint of smacking Drachnid around I decided that I should probably just call it an early night (again) and sleep. I’m typically a morning person and up fairly early, so going to bed around 2-3am leaves me with only 2-3 hours of sleep for a night.

Hopefully I’ll get a little more gaming in today, I spent a little under an hour patching up LoTRO last night so that it could be ready for today – so far the “free weekend” hasn’t started – or at least my account (which is in good standing) isn’t active yet, so we’ll see how that goes.

Hope everyone has a happy Thursday!

Gaming

Questing, Leveling, Options!

stargrace March 22, 2009 No Comments

One of the main reasons I enjoy EverQuest is that there is simply so much to do. While there may not be player housing (which draws me to Vanguard as well as EQ2) there is so much other stuff I never feel as though I have nothing to do. This also comes with a downside though – you can feel overwhelmed, like there is too much to do. If you’re a fan of alts (and lets face it, I can’t even pretend that I’m not) this may make you feel even MORE overwhelmed because of the desire to accomplish everything on all characters.

Take for instance crafting. It’s a long complicated process (that has gone through many changes over time) especially if you take into consideration the crafting trophies. Then there are also the aa you dedicate to the skills. Not to mention the fact that any character can learn all crafts (minus tinkering and things like alchemy and poison making). Countless hours go into farming supplies for crafting, and if not farming, well a whole lot of money goes into the process. That’s just one aspect of the game.

Questing is another complicated side. Have you heard of the quest Breakdown in Communication (also known as BiC)? It’s one of the longest quests in game and people worked for (literally) years completing it. Yesterday my group started working on a second one that came out with The Buried Sea for a hand augment. The quest chain is 39 tasks long. I think we got close to 10 of them done yesterday, maybe 8. Each quest rewarded a bit of bone that I assume gets combined into the final skeletal hand augment by the end of things.

What makes things even more complicated is that this quest in particular is a solo quest. If you do it in a group (as I was, with two others) it takes even longer because none of the drops are group drops. You’re not just looking for 10 ultra-rare bottles of rum, you’re looking for 30. It’s one aspect of EQ I wish would change to encourage grouping a little more.

If I’m not in the mood to quest nor to craft there’s always just plain leveling. Already at the cap of 85? No worries, there are a LOT of achievement points to obtain. Afraid of not being able to catch up? Since the points now scale based on how many you already have it’s quicker then ever to gain a few. Especially if you are in a hot zone.

Simply exploring some place new is great too. Just watch out because you may find yourself lost (as I do, often) or being chased down by large groups of angry critters.

The only time I find myself floundering on what to do in game is when I’m personally feeling restless and that’s simply because there is so many options I can’t settle on just one. Give me a game that offers me multiple venues to explore and that’s the game I’ll end up sticking with the longest even if it’s a combination of questing and pvp and crafting or some other weird combination. I’m sure the main reason for my choices comes from the fact that I have quite a bit of spare time to play these games. People who are a little more restricted in that aspect may dislike the fact that there are so many choices and so many paths to take. A game with fewer options can easily become appealing if you’ve only got time for so much.

Enough with the rambling! The druid hit level 72 yesterday, exploring through The Buried Sea working on the hand augment quest and then hanging out in Valdeholm for the evening. The enchanter is practically level 79, but I just didn’t have the patience last night to try to gain the last 3% she needs. When you’re watching the experience bar it seems to just stand still.

Today? Crafting, aside from some real life chores. I’d really like to get my halfling tailor her craft trophy and there are of course numerous other side quests I’m looking forward to doing.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming

Fabled Loot, Leveling, and Epics

stargrace March 19, 2009 No Comments

I haven’t actively gone after any fabled in game. The really good amazing stuff is either camped – or it’s held hostage by encounters that there’s no way I could kill, even with friends. Later last night it was suggested I begin working on the druid 1.5 pre-quest (difficult to work on 1.0’s when the named you need are fabled up) and so I was heading to Plane of Growth for some foraging when a fabled encounter walked into view. I had no idea who they were – but as coincidence would have it, they did drop a nice clicky for me! My first fabled drop and it’s not so bad.

As I mentioned, yes. I decided to begin working on the druid 1.5. Ideally I’ll do the 1.0 as well but with fabled up for the next month it makes it a little difficult, and I’d rather own my 1.5 anyhow. My first task was to head to Jaggedpine forest, a zone I have not been to in many moons. It looked almost exactly as I remember it way back when. After speaking to my npc there I headed to Plane of Growth (no fabled Tunare up) to forage a nut, which took most of my evening. Thankfully Tipa’s tweets on belly button line kept me entertained and slightly disgusted, either way.

Before heading off with a guild mate to work on my druid epic, we hung around Stoneroot and managed to ding the little druid level 70. It surprised me because when I started playing her again she was level 63 – only a few days to get to 70 without even trying. Of course it shouldn’t surprise me after the speed in which the necromancer leveled (from scratch) but it still makes me giggle.

By the time I managed to forage the one item I needed, it was getting late and I was getting tired, so I called it a night and headed to bed. Today I’ll pick up on it again as I’m sure there are plenty more things that need to be foraged, and it’s easy to get it done while I do other things. Inching the druid up a few more levels will be nice, though not on the top of my list of priorities. I still haven’t completed the new deity quests that are in place and for some reason servers came down last night at 2am and should not be back up until 8am – I have no idea why. The MoTD claimed it was for a hot fix, though I’m not quite sure what hot fix takes 6 hours to implement. Guess we’ll see!

The new LoN items today are great! For EQ2 it’s a parrot for your shoulder, in EQ it’s a special frost particle effect. Be sure to check out the LoN free loot items for EQ’s 10th anniversary. Even if you don’t play the game there’s no beating free items.

I should have some role play posts to add here soon, it’s been a little while and I’ve missed it. We’ll see how that goes! In the mean time, happy adventuring no matter where you find yourself.

Gaming

Ding, Necromancer hits 80!

stargrace March 15, 2009 No Comments

Well, I may not be at the level cap yet, but I’m slowly inching my way closer! Last night saw us hanging out at our usual Smith camp, and before I knew it I finally hit level 80 with the necromancer! With not quite 9 days played, I’m really happy about this. Of course, she only has 100aa and still has 5 levels to go before hitting the cap, but this brings me significantly closer. Since I’ve already got the necromancer 2.0 that adds another little accomplishment to the list.

The enchanter is not that far behind, sitting part way into level 78 for now. She’s and older character and just for a comparison she’s got 70 days or so played, with 150aa. I’ve had her since I started playing EQ though, and back before hot zones and before leveling was so much easier.

I spent some time working on my tradeskills as well – I finally managed to raise jewel crafting a few more points. I’m trying to decide which skill I want to raise next. There is an amazing craft quest that I want to do – and it requires at least 250 in all skills and I also want to get the aa for each of those crafts so I imagine that’s what I’ll be working on for the next little while. A huge thank you to the folks I’ve been playing with, without our little team of adventurers I wouldn’t have made it as far as I have. Of course having mercenary NPC available helps out a great deal too, that extra healer (or two) is great. Now we want to work through the SoD progression quests in order to unlock the higher level mercenary. The level 85 ones Journeyman RK5 have approx. 30k power – and that would be REALLY nice. The tank mercenary don’t seem to fair as well and they’re a little more difficult to control, but perhaps being able to unlock the higher tiers of those too would help. We’ll just have to see!

Purchasing spells will be another adventure for me, there’s so many that I’m missing because they’re priced so high in the bazaar. Which reminds me, I have a level 80 rogue pet that I need to purchase from Hills of Shade (I believe that’s the zone) some time! My last solo wander through that zone ended up with some undead taking a huge chomp out of me. Thank goodness I have the veteran reward that allows me to re-gain all of my experience, because I lost a good 8% and was 0% into level 80 when it happened. I decided to just stay safe until I can get a buffer in the mean time.

Hope everyone is having an amazing weekend!

Gaming

Ding, 79 Necromancer (and 78 Enchanter)

stargrace March 14, 2009 1 Comment

Located within the highest icy peaks of the Serpent’s Spine Mountains is the home of the Krithgor, a species of giants which, unlike other giants in Norrath, are intelligent — some even masters of magic.

Long ago and much to the chagrin of the other gods, Rallos Zek’s creations — the giants, orcs, ogres, and goblins — invaded the Plane of Earth. Among the giants who did not partake in the war was Beltron, the Krithgor king, who died a short time after the war’s end. The most noble of giants marched into Frostcrypt, the giant burial grounds, to lay their king to rest while the remaining giants stayed in their city, Valdeholm.

That day in Frostcrypt, Rallos Zek committed an atrocity upon his own creations, setting a curse upon them, an event which marked the origin of the Shades of Zek. Now, the mission of the Shades is to end their creator’s curse. In order to accomplish this, they believe, every living Krithgor giant must be slain. To this day, the curse lives on as the Shades of Frostcrypt do battle with the living and fully functioning Wraithguards and citizens of Valdeholm. – Zam.com

Valdeholm has been my “home away from home” for a little while now. It’s the level 70 hot zone, and the experience has been really nice. There are a few camps that people seem to head to by instinct. One is the pit located right at the beginning of the zone. This is a great spot but the pulls can be a little slow if you’ve got a full group. My little trio (complete with boxed enchanter and cleric) typically heads to the Smith which is just down from the North gate. The north gate is typically camped by people who are looking to farm a particular named who drops a nice augment. My group managed to get one almost right away so we haven’t been after any named.

We’ve gotten a lot of spell drops and I’m hoping that my little bazaar mules will make some coin as people return to check out the anniversary events. I noticed that SOE is holding another contest that I can’t partake in because I don’t live in the US. Shame because I’d really love to enter, too. Anyhow, we’ve been grinding out experience in the hot zone and it’s been a lot of fun. Oh, not to mention the fact that my necromancer is level 79, almost level 80! The enchanter is level 78, and heading towards 79. So yes, the experience has been amazing.

When we were tired of that zone we headed to The Mechamatic Guardian, which is a giant robot who wanders along in Dragonscale hills. Typically when you wander in front of this giant robot, he kicks you. It hurts. It hurts bad. However there are also missions you can obtain and when you run up to his right foot while you’re on one of these missions you’ll get the option to either zone in – or be kicked. Who would choose “please kick me” I have no idea.

The experience in these missions is also pretty good, there’s some rare loot, chance at named, and the zone respawns. We haven’t actually completed the missions yet which is fine by me. Being this close to 80 is exceptionally exciting, I’ve never been so close to the level cap before and certainly not in so short of a time period. The grind from 80-85 I know is quite long but I don’t think I’ll mind it in the least bit.

I’ve been back playing EverQuest for a month now, and it’s been so much fun. I’m looking forward to seeing what other trouble adventures I can get into – rumour has it that fabled starts on Monday, and every day when I listen to the general channel there are a few more people who have come back to the game to see how things are. It’s fantastic (even if I’m not on my ‘home’ server). I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend no matter where you’re gaming.

Oh, and on a completely unrelated note – I’ve finally updated my ShutterCal account with pictures for the last few months, I had seriously neglected the site and I’m so glad to be back into the swing of things again. You can see my ShutterCal account here, and you’ll find lots of pictures from my trip to San Diego there as well. Safe travels!

Another Quiet Night

Questing, Leveling, Options!

Fabled Loot, Leveling, and Epics

Ding, Necromancer hits 80!

Ding, 79 Necromancer (and 78 Enchanter)

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