SoD Progression

More SoD Progression

Today is Bristlebane’s Day. April Fools. It’s also rent day for me and inching closer to my birthday (I’ll be 28 and don’t mind in the least for those curious) and it happens to be the day I won’t believe a word of anything I read online, because we all know how those articles can be. NOT that I am against having fun and games, but I’d rather watch and not partake. I know, what a spoil sport. 

Last night my trio dived into some more Seeds of Destruction content, and it was a very frustrating night. The quests we needed to do were flagged as solo tasks, but a few of them were so difficult there was no way we were about to finish it if we were solo. They were also some of the most annoying quests I’ve done to date.

I’m talking about the Bloody Kithicor chain of quests. The ones that make you run around the woods taking down named and then burning their house. Except the very first named you’re sent to kill has a fake in place – and when you kill him this updates for everyone on the quest. Then you kill the real version of him and he drops a piece you need to turn in to Lanys T’Vyl. Only one piece drops at a time. So we actually ended up killing him 6 times (the 2nd version of the named was red to me) and waiting for respawns in between. The fun didn’t end there though. You also need to ‘burn’ down houses – to do this you use a torch you’ve been given and click it on a wooden box you’ll find in the back of various homes. These boxes have a 7 minute respawn timer, and you need a few of them. You also need axes, with a respawn timer, and more chests, with more respawn timers. 

Not to mention the portion where you talk to an NPC and four or five mean mobs who hit for 1.2 or so each spawn and attack an npc – your goal is to keep him alive. That didn’t work out so well the first round. 

So I decided to do the quests another time while we completed them for Ninga and Ultann. Doing these quests unlocks further tasks along the progression, and last night I was just not in the mood to work on it. 

I was thinking back to a post that Cuppy made about questing in EverQuest. She’s exactly right. While questing to level is my typical method in EQ2 it was never my main method of leveling in EQ. I grinded in experience groups at camps, and that was what I was comfortable doing. This whole task method of progressing through an expansion and especially The Void because there are so many tiers is just something I’m not comfortable with. I enjoy having a puller, and sitting and talking with my group while we lay waste to things. I dislike being constantly on the move, constantly roaming around. It may sound odd, but I suppose it just comes from my perceptions on what is ‘normal’ for me to do in game.

That being said – I have no idea where the population of Drinal stands, but the players there claim it’s fairly low. In Bloody Kithicor there was only my group and perhaps three others. I realize the expansion came out in October (so it’s been a while) but I had expected a little more of a population. Though I suppose the decrease could also be attributed to fabled going on right now and people working on that. 

It was a nice quiet evening though, and that’s exactly what I was looking for. On a completely unrelated topic – good luck today Ninga! He has some fairly exciting real life stuff going on and I wish him the best. Hope everyone has a great Wednesday today, and don’t fall for any of that April Fool’s Day stuff!

Firiona Vie – Bitter Victuals

Last night saw me back in EverQuest, where as tonight I’ll be playing Lord of the Rings Online with Kasul – and I’m of course looking forward to it. After trying to decide what to do, my group (the ever present Ninga and Ultann of course) finally settled on progressing our way through a little bit more of Seeds of Destruction. It was time to head to a few zones I’d never been to before, first being Bloody Kithicor. 

What Norrathian hasn’t heard of the Battle of Bloody Kithicor, one of the most notable events in Norrathian history? 

Not so long ago, two great armies converged on the Kithicor Forest for one of the largest and bloodiest battles in Norrath’s history. Lanys T`Vyl, the Child of Hate and Firiona Vie, the Chosen of Tunare brought their armies to Kithicor to wage war for the fate of Antonica. 

You can go here to read all of the lore surrounding this zone, and there is a lot. I love these stories, I never really experienced them the first time I played EverQuest because – well because I was still new to gaming and I didn’t even realize what a draw that could be for me personally. 

The next portion of progression required us to speak to Firiona Vie (who hasn’t changed in all this time might I add) and she sent us off to an instanced version of Old Commonlands. Our first task was to take care of pesky spiders and loot their poison glands. While your “guide” Selkith takes the glands and makes a poison for you to use, he sends you out to kill the Murkwater Assassins, and then to insert each one of the poison bottles into various chests around the Murkwater camp. 

Selkith doesn’t want you to tell Firiona Vie what you did, because she wouldn’t approve of the method (sneaking into their camp and poisoning them all) you kill a named (who doesn’t drop any loot, boo) and you’re off onto the next mission afterwards. It took quite a bit of time simply because the spiders were onto us. Literally. We’d be a good 100 feet away from a spider and then all of the sudden we’d have a whole lot of them that just seemed to instantly show up all at the same time. It must have been my deodorant, or lack there of. I am a necromancer after all. 

You can read the entire progression quest here for yourself, and it was worth a fair amount of experience considering. Things are starting to hurt now though, the mobs are a lot harder and hit a lot harder then I’m used to. They all summon as well, making it a lot more difficult as a necromancer. I can’t kite. Since none of my characters have leveled over 80 yet, the encounters are yellow and white and it doesn’t take long before I’m face first in the dirt. We had a few tricky pulls last night but over all we did alright. I’m finding more and more use for my enchanter (it’s nice to have at least some version of slow) and still enjoying playing quite a bit. 

Hope everyone else had an amazing weekend, and I’ll see you in Norrath!