VG – Page 20 – Nomadic Gamer

Boats move, and Faction in Tehatamani Harbor

stargrace December 3, 2008 1 Comment

Just hours after I made this post yesterday about how someone had parked their boat right on top of the riftway and I found it frustrating, I came back to the harbor to find that they had moved their boat (or someone had moved it for them, either way)! It made me giggle and I just had to get a screen shot of it.

I did the first two quests in Tehatamani Harbor, turned them in and got two shards. Right clicked the necklace I had also gotten from the Lucent Circle and it upgraded the piece for me. Went to a new NPC, picked up two more quests. These quests only reward coin, and they appear to be repeatable tasks. One makes you kill 100 creatures around the pyramids, and the other makes you collect 50 vials of liquid from these same creatures. As a blood mage I’m primarily a healer, but it’s basically a necromancer healer. You heal via life taps off of mobs. If I’m not damaging mobs, I’m not healing. The mobs are level 46 or so around this area, at level 43 that’s red. Still, they’re two dots and can be taken down, it just means that my spells don’t always land, and the fights tend to be a little drawn out. I killed the first 100 mobs and gathered my 50 vials in about an hour and a half, maybe slightly more. Went back to the NPC who gave me my 5 silver (ew, repairs were 9 silver) and gave me the exact same quests.

Double ew. I wasn’t sure why they were just giving me the same quests over again, so I checked online and it looks like I need level 44 in order to move up in the ranks.

That’s alright. I headed off next to Vsurog Moor, which is where I’ll be living pretty much from 45-50. At level 45 I can begin to work on faction for the swamp armor that everyone talks about. I’ll be going into more detail about this when I get there. It’s pretty nice armor, and should keep me fairly busy. Rumor has it that Growlius (Dreadknight partner in crime) may be coming back to the game this weekend. That would totally rock, I may put out some nice dps some times but I can’t actually tank, being a cloth wearer and all. For the odd person out there who IS playing VG (I know the numbers may be few) if you’re looking for a friendly guild with a very active player base, check out Safe Haven on the Seradon server.

Safe Haven has branches in multiple games (like a lot of guilds do these days) and have been established for quite a long time. In Vanguard there are over 585 members (as of today, yesterday someone deleted a few alts if you recall it being at 588!) and there is typically anywhere from 7-20 people on every night. I’d like to say ‘most’ people are PST, but there are a good amount in other time zones too. They’re friendly, organize guild events, and have a guild hall. They also have the trophies that get placed in halls, giving members some awesome buffs. You can either group up and hang out, or just do your own thing and have a social network, either way it’s fantastic. Just be careful, I hear Joodah bites.

After the few brief quests I did yesterday along with the killing, I’m 40% into level 43. I can’t complain that’s a pretty good portion into the level. I know 40-50 takes the longest, but I’m confident that before too long I’ll be there.

Gaming

Exploring Tehatamani Harbor

stargrace December 2, 2008 4 Comments

Screen shot is of someones annoying boat. The fact that they own a boat is great. The problem is that they parked it RIGHT on top of the riftway (that red column in the back end of the ship). When you port in, you end up getting a ‘you are on a boat wee’ compass that shows up and if you’ve never been to this particular area before, it’s annoying. Have a little curtsey and park your boats some place else! Like NOT right on the riftway. Shesh.

I began my slow trek to 50. On some advice of a friend I made my way to Tehatamani Harbor, although I’m too low to get most of the quests there the area DOES have a fantastic story. The chunk itself is located in Qalia, bottom left hand area. A little piece of land that juts out into the ocean. It’s beautiful. There’s a group of people who belong to the Lucent Circle hanging out, they have a little camp all set up. The very first introductory quest gives you a necklace (well, it gave me one at least, two choices of them) and as you work on tasks for this group of people, you can combine the shards (rewards from tasks) and upgrade your necklace. I’ve only done the first few quests so far, but the necklace is already an upgrade for me.

The Lucent Circle is made up of Paladins who are there to right wrongs and do all that good holy stuff. Apparently they have opened recruitment to anyone who wants to help, and not everyone within their ranks are happy about that. The Lucent Circle is there to fight against the Tehatamani Empire. Basically like an old Robin Hood story, the Empire steals artifacts from other cultures and takes them for their own. They ransack and pillage civilizations and cultures, amassing great wealth. The Tehatamani are at war with the Vakrin, who were the last civilization that they stole from. They managed to get some sort of sacred artifact that gave them huge powers that they shouldn’t have.

The first task sent me to learn a little about their history, and then head off to some pyramids in the distance that were surrounded by snakes and bugs. Apparently their grounds keepers are on holiday and they want me to kill the diseased creatures. I did notice a raid mob also pathing around the pyramids (or maybe it was just a group mob, I forget what so many dots over the mobs heads mean now, it was at least five) and I stayed well clear of them. I killed 12 creatures, learned my history lesson, and upgraded my necklace. I love these types of quests, and the story is pretty good. I need to earn more rank with the Lucent Circle, so I picked up the next round of quests. They’re level 46 though, and I’m level 43 which means they’re red to me. They want me to kill more creatures, and I think I should be able to do that easily enough. I’ll need a few more levels before I advance too much further, so I’ll have to find some place a little lower to gain some experience. The next round of quests sends me back to collect some vials of liquid and take care of 100 of the icky creatures that surround the pyramids.

The kills all net me faction with the Lucent Circle as well, and there’s some nice heroic gear on a vendor if I turn in tokens to them. We’ll see how it goes!

Gaming

The trek to 50

stargrace December 1, 2008 1 Comment

The blood mage is sitting at level 43, and I’m eager to begin the trek to 50. I’ve never been end game in Vanguard before although I did make it a goal of mine some time back. Now that I’m back in an active guild (7-20 people on throughout the day and evening at any given time) I’m excited to see what I can get done. My partner in crime (Growlius, plays a DeathKnight) has not returned (yet) but I have my fingers crossed. A tank would be nice.

I’ve been looking for places to level. I found a few posts and forums mentioning areas, and I plan on checking them out. I have a few 50% potions left to save up for quest turn ins, even though I don’t have any 100% ones. I used those ones for crafting, of course. Plains of Anquish is where I was to start I believe, but I didn’t finish all of the quests there, so I’ll have to head back.

Level 40-50

Thestra:

—Plains of Anguish – A good place to quest & level for early 40’s. There’s also a cool skeleton illusion quest that provides a nice piece of armor for your class, and it would lead you back into Graystone to finish one part of the skeleton illusion quest. So before going in to Graystone, it’s a good idea to get this quest started in Plains of Anguish.

—Lost Canyon – You’ll find quite a few quests here in your early 40’s. You should at least have a partner to do these with.

—Ruin Falls – Once you hit level 41, you can do the quests available here. These quests will eventually lead you on down south to do the faction armors.

—The Fallen Cove – There are quests here you can do to pad some levels, since you need level 44 to start doing the faction armor quests.

—Vsurog Moor / Floridiel / Ichtakhta – These 3 zones contain some quests you can do at around level 43, and once you hit level 44 you can start doing the faction armor quests. They provide you with some really nice endgame armor, it’s worth doing and will require a group for many parts. Many players do these faction armor farming all the way until level 50.

—Swamp of Rumog – Once you hit level 46 you can head to the outpost in Swamp of Rumog and quest there. Right here you will encounter high level 40’s mobs, but many are soloable if you can kite. There’s also a dungeon with high level mobs for group play, with quest npc’s outside so make sure you grab them before entering. The famous single group Hegnerian encounter is located in this swamp dungeon, and the encounter is on a 2 hour respawn timer. Hegnerian drops nice items, and is needed to finish your faction chest armor since it drops the Core of Ezigoth. It’s a fun encounter, definately take a group in there and check it out.

Qalia:

—Razad – Lots of new quests were added to Razad for the early 40’s. There’s also a new Trickster’s Haven dungeon in this zone that you can take a group in to. It’s a fun and rewarding dungeon.

—Sunset Pointe – You should be able to find a few quests here in your early 40’s.

—Stranglewater Shore – You will find the Xenn dungeon here, a great dungeon for the early 40’s to take a group to. It’s a fun and interesting dungeon, definately worth checking out.

—Rhaz Inkur – You can do quests here starting in your mid-40’s, and you can head inside once you get level 46+ with a group. Be aware mobs are mostly immune to movement debuffs and mezzes here, so don’t try things solo.

—Afrit – You can quest here starting in your mid-40’s, it has armor quests here, you should grab at least a partner to do these quests.

—Tehatamani Harbor/Temple – Lots of quests here you can do starting at level 40. There’s a lot of faction farming you need to do, and many things require a group here. You can get really nice epic items by questing here.

The leveling guide is a little out dated, but I’m thinking that most of the places will still work. Razad is about the only place I’ve been to in any depth, remember I stuck to a mid-high 30’s area for my last level and a bit, using potions to enhance the experience gain. It worked out great, after turning in 20 quests or so I managed to ding 42, even though none of the actually mob encounters gave any experience. I’m also getting close to 50 artificer (mineralogist). It will be nice to hit 50 in both spheres at almost the same time. I’m 10% away from 47, which is a huge accomplishment for me. Still trying to decide which crafter I’ll level next (yes, I do plan on leveling another one). There are some fantastic changes coming to Vanguard (including fishing and Galleons) in December, a week or two away. Looking forward to experiencing these first hand, and I should have some more write ups soon.

Gaming

Those not so rare sigils

stargrace November 30, 2008 No Comments

I love crafting in Vanguard. It’s one of the most complex and interesting craft systems I’ve seen, and it’s not timed which makes it more enjoyable for me. While I can appreciate the system EQ2 has in place, some times the phone rings, or the door, or a pot boils over or some other real life interruption occurs, and in EQ2 this could mean disaster for the process. In Vanguard it just means stepping away and hitting the next button in the stage when you get back. There’s so many combinations of things you can craft, and so many different catalysts and powders and dusts and what not that you can add to each and every individual item, I just love it. There’s a LOT of crafting quests in Vanguard as well, which makes it interesting and fun. I love crafting in any game, but yes, Vanguard is my favorite.

My artificer managed to hit level 46 in crafting yesterday, and is now 60% through that level. Leveling is hard, and it takes a long time. I do writs which reward me with bags of goodies, as well as faction and coin. The faction is used to purchase recipes, and is needed for certain quests. For example the brick quests. I need to earn 5,000 faction in order to be able to learn granite bricks for each continent. So far I’ve only learned Kojan style, but I’m well on my way to the remaining faction I need for Thestra. Qalia will just have to wait.

I also noticed another change since I’ve been gone. When you’re leveling up, as soon as you get to 20+ you’re required to save up Masterwork Sigils for your upgrade recipes. Basically this is the difference between crafting handcrafted items, and mastercrafted items (except mastercrafted items in VG are really really really nice, and sell very well). These sigils used to be VERY rare. In all my levels I only ever earned 4-5 of them. You need 8 per recipe of the current tier you’re on, and 2 less for every tier you’ve passed. There are (for me at least) three recipes to purchase that use these sigils, per tier. That’s a lot of sigils! When I started crafting yesterday I thought it may have just been dumb luck that I managed to get two on my first batch, but by the end of the craft day when I was looking at 15 sigils, I knew things must have changed. I’m not lucky, and I’m certainly not THAT lucky. I did manage to buy the T5 jewelery recipe upgrade (30g, OUCH!) so that means I can make rare jewelery for levels 40-50. Crafting also still involves help from other crafters. To make rare jewelery I use a rare gem but then I also use a truesilver sheet, which is crafted by blacksmiths. It’s nice, and it’s one of the things that have kept the community together and so strong.

There are a LOT of artificers in game because they craft houses, furniture, and boats (including the galleons that are due out next month) which are all pretty popular. With fishing being implemented next month I’m also trying to think about who to level next. Do I go with my carpenter so I can own a boat and get myself some actual furniture in my house, or do I want to go with a ‘useful’ class like my leatherworker (there are the least amount of those around) or a blacksmith armorer or weaponsmith to be able to make my upgradeable bits.

Ah, the choices!

Gaming

Ding, 43 Bloodmage!

stargrace November 29, 2008 No Comments

I spent most of the evening yesterday in Vanguard once I’d completed the daily tradeskill on my tailor in EQ2 (and dinged level 60 might I add, nice accomplishment there!) it’s common for me to bounce between multiple games, and station access is letting me bounce between a few without feeling too bad about the cost. It was a pretty exciting day.

My goal was to hit level 43, which was pretty lofty because I just hit level 42 yesterday. What I decided to do was give up the sand in the underwear zones for a bit and head back to Thestra. I noticed there were a lot of green quests in Beranid Hills, all of them solo. Looking at my meagre collection of a whole 10% experience, I figured even if most of the encounters were grey (which they were) I could use a potion and gain 50% on top of whatever the quests would rewards with me. I probably picked up at least 20 quests and one at a time spent the evening clearing them out. By the time I’d killed everything I needed, explored some druid stones, located some dead dogs for some poor old lady, found someones dead daughter (the Beranid Hills are filled with dead things or undead as the case is) I headed back to camp and turned them all in. I was at 14% experience from kills, and after using the potion and turning what I had over to the npc’s I was at 77% experience. Very worth while.

After getting so close to my goal of 43 I couldn’t just give up, so I headed back to Razad, the land of sand in uncomfortable places. I ran around completing the last few quests I had in that area, and before too long DING 43! This is a big level for me. Number one, it means I can now group with level 50’s and gain experience and credit for quests. Huge plus. Number two, I’ve had a robe on me for the past 15 levels. It’s crafted by tailors and it’s level is red. That’s pretty much the equivalent of fabled gear back in T5 for EQ2 before raids were really popular. There’s purple gear (basically mythical) but aside from my craft bag I’ve never seen any. This robe is VERY nice for me and I’m sure I’ll be wearing it for a long time to come.

Besides the leveling, I also found myself a home again in Vanguard. I returned to Safe Haven, which is a guild filled with amazing people. They span across multiple games (including an EQ2 branch on Antonia Bayle) and much like nostalgia in EQ1 and EQ2 I could not ask for a better bunch of people. They’re simply amazing. It was nice to be welcomed back in – and learn that they now have a proper guild hall. This thing is MASSIVE. Screen shot above is me standing in some sort of ceremonial room. We do have a small amount of dues that we pay once a month (I think for my level it’s 5g a month) but it’s well worth it, especially because our guild hall houses our guild trophies. These are statues within the hall that place buffs (three of them, one for each sphere) permanently on guild members.

It’s nice to be back, if for no other reason then to have others to talk to. We had 10-15 people on tonight, which is about what I remember. The guild also organizes events, and I’m looking forward to partaking in a few of those over time. We’ll see how it goes.

Now, onwards to 50!

VG

Boats move, and Faction in Tehatamani Harbor

Exploring Tehatamani Harbor

The trek to 50

Those not so rare sigils

Ding, 43 Bloodmage!

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