veksar the sunken theater

Progress

Yesterday was one of those rare days when the members of three plus one are all around – and it was great. I spent the morning creating a new necromancer for no other reason then the fact that I could. Her name is Stargrace on the kithicor server, go figure. I used my paladin to power level her until the down time, and managed to reach level 20 hanging out in Fallen Gate.

In the afternoon the four of us decided it was about time we started working on our TSO chapter quests again, and so we finished off chapter 4 which required going into Obelisk of Lost Souls (the level 40 zone) a few times and then headed back to the Moors to pick up chapter 5. This one requires you to head into a number of TSO instances for updates. We meandered our way through Obelisk of Ahkzul (no, the shield did not drop, is it even real or just a myth?) just for fun and then decided we would head to Veksar, since it was the daily double (MoTD if you’re from Kithicor).

We had a few issues with the zone, but nothing extreme. Not a single upgrade dropped, I was hoping the healer charm would show up at the end.

I happened to spot my level 74 coercer charm M1 for sale for 50p on the broker, and Ultann purchased it for me (I’m broke, dang alts) which is fantastic. I have purchased both him and Wpus masters before, it’s just one of the pleasures of gaming with friends. The master charm is not any different then the level 64 version I was using aside from the amount that the mob regens, and the duration of the charm. I’m exceptionally happy to have it though – the spell researcher is currently working on enraging demeanor for me, so 50p was a huge bargain.

These researchers are also why the spell was so cheap to begin with, I had seen the spell sitting for sale for a few weeks now at 100p with no bites. For 100p I’d rather just wait the 30 days. 50p is pretty affordable for such a fantastic spell (my bread and butter while soloing and exploring a few specific zones).

The Norrathian Museum also added a few more books to its collection, which really made me happy. Taymar created a character on Kithicor to pen me a novel as well as the banker of one of Kithicor’s raid guilds, I had to giggle. I have 13 unique player written books in the collection and I expect it to grow.

Aside from that it was a quiet night. In the evening Ultann and Kasul offered to help level up my baby fury, an arasai that I’ve taken a shining to. We started out at level 23 and in Fallen Gate, before too long I was level 38 and in Runnyeye before I had to call it a night and get some sleep. I love alts, nothing new there. The baby fury has only a handful of aa and she’s wearing practically no gear but it’s still fun. I’ve got an unused 75 fury on my recruit a friend account, but I don’t expect to do anything with that third account now that the month if game time I paid for is up.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Wednesday, and that everyone going to Fan Faire has an incredible time. Hopefully next year I’ll be there too!

Lost in the Void – Tradeskill Style

Yesterday saw us with an odd assortment of guild mates actually on line (all four of us at once!) which hasn’t been happening often this week due to work, so we decided to take advantage of it. That was until Ultann lost his power for a few hours. In the mean time Kasul, Wpus, and I decided we would attempt a crafting mission, and as chance would have it, the mission of the day was the newest one that was added, the void mission.

I’d never done this mission before and I was excited. We all ported over to the Moors where one of the air balloon NPC send you on your way. A few words of warning for this particular mission. It doesn’t tell you, but you require a mining skill of 25+ in order to harvest the ore that is in the zone. This differs from the regular instances where harvesting skill is not taken into account at all. There was no warning that I’d need this skill either, so I had to leave and come back.

Number two, there’s no real ‘door’ to this zone which means that unless you happen to be CURRENTLY ON the quest, there’s no way into the zone (that I have found at least). Now, the down side to this is that if you complete the quest, and then accidently click the ‘zone to Moors’ button that pops up on the nice shiny void door before looting the chest – you will have no way of returning. Arysh didn’t miss out on too much at least when the chest was popped, as we only managed to get ourselves a jewelers piece of gear (which Kasul already had). I dragged both the tailor and the carpenter to the zone to gain the crafter shards as well as faction.

The zone itself was beautiful, and the quest was quite fun. You have literally walked in on a failed raid, and what the raiders could not do in their uber gear the crafters will attempt. Of course there’s the matter of supplies. Dead raiders and mounts lay all over the zone and you have to run around taking the clothes from their corpses. Literally. You click on the dead body and watch as their gear vanishes. It was incredibly funny. You also steal flesh from the dead mounts in order to create the food articles needed. The trees near by can be used for wood, there just happens to be some void-coal laying around the ground, and there are little piles of moving void goo that you can harvest.

But what about a craft table? Well, thankfully the gnome who tells you about the mission has a supply of tinkered ones available, they last for 15 minutes each round and he’ll pass out stacks. We all managed to complete our portions (with poor Kasul doing most of the work, as Wpus and myself are mere lowbie crafters and the combines were quite daunting) and the quest was completed without too much trouble. Of course we all know crafters are incredible beings of power, so we managed to create the portal using the supplies left behind. Who needs raiders.

Once Ultann’s power returned we headed to Veksar: The Sunken Theater and cleared the entire zone (it also happened to be the daily double for yesterday). It makes an amazing difference when I can concentrate on just playing the enchanter and stunning every opportunity I get. Not that I mind two boxing and playing the mystic, but of course performance is better when not divided. Nothing of great worth dropped, and we still had some time before people had to call it an night (myself included) so we headed over to Obelisk of Ahkzul (no shield) and then for a change of pace we went to the Commonlands and completed Cavern of the Afflicted (no jester’s cap, no sword). Ellithia is 16 shards away from completing her T2 void set, Arysh is quite a few more behind but she’s getting there slowly. It’s nice to be able to complete these zones without too much difficulty, and when there is difficulty we don’t have a whole lot of people berating us telling us how much we suck (like that one warlock from Deep Forge who wanted to bring a 3rd healer along when we wiped once on the final named). I didn’t get any time to work on my transmuting before I had to call it a night, but I’m still hoping to get high enough to be able to transmute level 70+ gear before too long. The guild bank has been purged of lower level rares in order to make items to transmute, and I think I currently have enough for about 150 combines, which should grant at least 60-80 skill ups depending on how lucky I am (though we all know if I didn’t have bad luck I’d have no luck at all).

I hope everyone has an incredible Friday, no matter where you find yourself. I should be in various games this weekend, but as always you can get a hold of me via email, twitter, or any other means you can find (most are listed in the upper left portion of the web site).  Safe travels and happy gaming!

We didn’t win – but we also didn’t care

First of all, congratulations to Wpus and Ultann for finally getting their guild to level 30! Yesterday when I logged in we were 10% from the level, and I grinded out enough writs to push us over the edge. I realize that level 30 may not seem like a big deal, but this is a guild made up of three people (myself included) with the occasional Kasul popping in on his ranger. For three people, this is a big deal just like it was a big deal when Nostalgia hit 30 and was able to purchase a guild hall. Which is exactly what Wpus did. Now proud owners of a guild hall in Qeynos, we spent some time yesterday fixing it up. Of course there’s a long way to go, but it’s beginning to fill out. Our amenities include a broker, banker, druid ports, recall to guild hall, and the NPC merchant that you can sell status items to. Not many, but it’s better then none.

Once the excitement of purchasing a hall had died down, we decided to do something ‘new’ – new for us in any case. I suggested we give Veksar: The Invasion and Sunken Theater a shot.

We actually did fairly well in the Invasion and would have done even better had the zone not been bugged and refused to drop the two keys you need to unlock the third door. No one had received them at all, and that is the portion of the zone where you unlock the chest and move the stick Indiana Jones style. I did get Ellithia a nice earring upgrade but was sad that we couldn’t attempt to go further.

We didn’t do so hot in Sunken Theater, although like the previous zone we did manage to take down the first two named. Once we got to the named that spawns those globes that like to heal him, well. That was as far as we could get. Still, for having three people in group and two of us boxing, we did surprisingly well.

More and more as I play I realize it’s NOT about winning, or at least it doesn’t have to be. There are plenty of things we can take down with our group including Maidens which we ran first. Sure we’re not going to be one grouping PR but as long as we’re having fun attempting what we do that’s all that matters. I keep reminding myself that my illusionist only has her T1 TSO set as does the boxed inquisitor, and I also don’t have my epic. Eventually I’ll work on that. Maybe.

After our Veksar attempts we headed to Korsha simply because none of us had been there before. It’s an absolutely beautiful looking zone and the danger levels are just as high. We managed to spawn the first named who is an enormous golem that reflects spells. Great!

Aside from the reflect he has a dot that instantly drains all of your power if not cured, and a stun, and a few little knockbacks. He’s actually not that difficult an encounter – except our group was completely made up of casters, even the shadowknight tank spends more time casting spells then CA’s. That meant we could do very little damage to him and could only stand and watch (and frantically heal) as things went wrong.

We quickly learned our limits on the zone and headed back to the guild hall broken and battered but with huge smiles still since we had such an awesome time. In the end that’s all that matters. Kasul has started playing his ranger again (though I believe he may switch over to an assassin) and it would be nice to fill the final spot in group with some DPS. We’ll see how that goes.

All in all it was a pretty full evening. I went to bed very early (still recuperating) and was awoken by fireworks at 4am. I realize it’s Victoria Day weekend, but still, 4am?! Gah.

Hope everyone else has an amazing weekend, see you in Norrath!