January 29, 2007
Last night, I spent a little more time in Tanvu doing quests and getting blessed. But I also played around in in the Khal starting area. And boy did I find trouble!
Kurtz and I did a little gataro hunting last night, and man are they fierce. They live in an area called the Sanctium, and there are a few quests given out by the Water Serpent, a wurm-type creature that stands on the shores nearby. (His quests are needed for the Blessing of the Serpent)
Above: I didn’t have time to check this out more closely but I thought it was a really cool spot. It’s a set of rocks by the shore that spout out water every now and then. I thought it was a volcano till I got closer. Very neat.
If you head to this area, be ready for fast respawn, especially in the pit outside. The other thing we noticed was that when I tried to pull them with a shuriken, they wouldn’t move towards me, so I didn’t bother waiting around and ended up charging them usually.
After wrapping up the quests here, I did a little soloing on Jaye, the wood elf ranger who expatriated to Khal from Ca’ial Brael to Khal. I can’t put my finger on it, but I love hunting in Qalia. Even though my home of Ca’ial is probably the most visually stunning city in Telon, I prefer the sands of the Qa Desert.
I worked on the starting quests — killed a bunch of scorpions, caught a bunch of scorpions, laid a scorpion trap on the Kasavari….the only thing that would have topped it off is if I had been turned into a giant scorpion on my way to Khal, to scare the poo out of the rioting prisoners outside the city.
Besides spending a lot of time around scorpions, I also met up with a manticore. I noticed him circling high above, and eventually tracked him down among some rocks near the Raia outpost. I began to wonder if it would be possible to get him to follow me to Khal, because he might like the hustle and bustle of the city. Even though he’s a level 16, 5 dot mob, and I was only level 6, I figured I had a chance if I used my racial ability. When activated, I turn into an Okami wolf pup, which gives me increased speed an immunity to any movement impairing spells.
Above: I’m in the foreground, in the form of an Okami. I still have the twigs in my hair that I have as a wood elf!
I got about 20 feet before he got me. He’s now on my “to do” list of mean mobs to kill when I get older and stronger.
Above: Dead.
My little tip of the day that I learned last night is the Quest Tracker. I didn’t know this existed, but it’s terrific. If you click on the “Quest Tracker” in your quest journal, or double click the name of the quest, it appears in checklist form on your main screen in the upper right corner. It’s very handy if you have several quests and want to be able to keep track of a few that you are working on simultaneously. I’d like to figure out how to move the text up into the corner a little more, but I’m sure there is a UI that will do that soon, if not already.
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Vanguard Level 1-10 | Comments (2)
January 28, 2007
Now that the game is live, I am finally getting to group up with my husband, which always makes a challenging evening that much more difficult.
We wanted to start in the same area together, so I rolled up a Kojani monk named Erika and he made a Half Elf disciple named Kurtz. We did our unspeakable acts of cruelty in Shang Village, endured humility in Dellerjuba Village on the first night, so last night we were ready for some real fun.
Above: Fighting in Stronghold. Don’t you try any of that flapping crane nonsense on me mister!
We began by catching a chicken….well it was really more like a creepy looking goose, named the Golden Ostard. The thing runs around the area behind Master Tallon’s house, near the red shrine with the jin crystal, and you have to click the leash in your inventory to capture it and bring it back. It’s a neat little quest, and the potion reward was nice considering it was from a newbie quest. I was really hoping that we could keep the leash, because I know a few gnomes that could use one, but no luck.
We also did a quest to retrieve a mushroom from the top of a large rock. I fell a few times trying it, although I swore I felt a pair of hands on my back the last time I plunged to the ground. Eventually we both got the mushroom and worked our way through the Ghost Wind quests.
We had a little confusion on the quest path later on that night. We had done some of the Stronghold quests, but weren’t high enough to do the group ones (like rooftops). We ended up clicking the mysterious essence in the abandoned hotel, and got ported to a quest area that seemed too high for our level. The better spot was heading to Garu’s house, near the Yeti, and doing his tests first.
Now, I’m not really a big fan of tests, mainly because I always manage to screw them up. But I loved these tests (even though I managed to screw them up!)
The test of wisdom was a series of riddles, and if you get them wrong you get smacked in the head. 50 smacks later, I figured out all the answers to the riddles and passed the test. (The answers are fire, soul, promise, name, broom, and key if you want to avoid being pummeled)
Above: Testing our mental prowess in the Trial of Wisdom. Stop hitting me!
My real favorite, though, was the Leap of Faith. We had to walk to the end of a plank that overlooked Tanvu, and prove our faith in jin. I love stuff like this. In Everquest, my favorite spot in game was the hidden bridge in the Deep. I loved slowly following the line of people, as we all tried to follow the little brown bags of dropped shruikens that marked the path. Or better yet, trying to sprint across with no real idea if you were aiming correctly along the bridge. In Everquest 2, I loved jumping down to Longdrop Falls, and hoping that I didn’t overjump and miss the little pond below.
Above: One….two…… THREE!!! (Below)
This jump didn’t fail to deliver, and I didn’t even screw this test up! My faith in jin must be strong, because I survived the jump and landed safely back at Garu’s room.
We finished our evening by reaching Master Ashaine and getting another series of tests. We’ll work on them tonight and then try to head back to Stronghold. There’s a woman crying somewhere inside that we still need to find. Very sad.
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Vanguard Level 1-10 | Comments (5)
January 22, 2007
Over the weekend I checked out a really cool, low level dungeon right outside Lomshir called The Serpent of Siharis. On the surface, it doesn’t even look like a dungeon, because it’s just the rotting hull of a ship run aground. But there are roaming dead all around the ship, and it becomes clear that something sinister is going on.
Above: Bracing for a pull at the bottom of the demon temple.
As my group headed onto the ship, we met up with the ghostly captain, who told us what happened. Apparently the ship ran aground on top of a temple, unleashing a horde of undead on the beach and causing the untimely deaths of the crewmates. He asked us to destroy the portals in the temple below the ship, to stop the influx of demons that had been seeping into our world.
We made our way below decks, and soon found the hole in the hull that opened to the temple. For a low level dungeon (levels 8-12), it sure was impressive! It was huge, and full of Ahnd’ka demons who cast a menacing shadow as they stood guard along the walls. The architecture reminded me of Qur’xa temple, which makes sense since the demons had stolen the secrets of planar travel from the Kurashasa.
Above: Eerie shadows from Ahnd’ka Demons.
Pulls here seemed fairly straightforward. The demons are usually clumped in twos or threes, but the groups seem spaced out enough that it’s easy to avoid overpulls of multiple groups.
We crawled to the bottom, but unfortunately did not meet up with the boss. Instead, we decided to celebrate with a group handstand. We stunk so bad at coordinating it, though, and the only thing that could have helped us was to have had the boss spawn right behind us as we were counting to three.
Above: Can Henry Kissinger do this?!
Overall, it was a fun crawl. It’s nice to be able to tackle dungeons even at a low level, and this certainly was no throw away, space wasting, mob lined tunnel. The layout and quests involving it are meaningful and eye-catching. It’s a great spot for anyone near lomshir. Hopefully next time I’m back there I’ll get to see the boss–and do a better group handstand!
Here’s a few shots from the Griffin Event on Friday night. I only got to ride one for about 15 minutes, because soon after they put in the griffin vendor in Halgarad, the servers had to come down for a patch. I got to see some neat stuff in that short time though!
Here I am heading into Ironfor…….er, wrong game!
If I get to do one thing in this game, it will be to push Corka off this bridge.
Can’t wait to find out who we can blame for this getting here….
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Vanguard Level 1-10 | Comments (1)
January 15, 2007
Back in beta 3, I checked out the homeland of the Kurashasa, who are one of the catlike races in Telon. Here’s my write up of my experience there.
The Kurashasa race is a bit of a paradox. They are savage, relentless hunters, who relish being bathed in the blood of their prey. Yet they are extremely intelligent, having mastered telepathy and planar travel.
Above: The Qur’xa Temple welcoming commitee.
They have been hunting a demon race called the Ahnd’ka, yet they have found themselves outnumbered and cornered in the lands outside Qur’xa Temple. My first task was, of course, to slaughter a bunch of them to drive back the ambush. As I ran out to hunt, I was fascinated by the glowing bluish ground and the swirling red and grey sky, which I later realized was because I was on a different plane from the rest of Telon. In short, the hunting grounds seemed both celestial and ominous.
Above: Running from the Ahnd’ka
I collected the required brains and brought them to Qur’xa Temple for them to be examined and studied, in order to learn more about the Ahnd’ka. When I ported in, I was surprised, because the temple was not what I expected to see, having just come from the dark and brutal hunting grounds. The temple was bright, with gilded columns, and polished halls. If you are familiar with Everquest, it reminded me of Erudin, with its teleporters and stone-white architecture.
Not surprisingly, I was asked to continue my hunt of the Ahnd’ka. It turns out that they had found a way to tap into the minds of the Kurashasa and corrupt many of the hunters. There is some interesting lore, along with a neat questline, about the relationship between the Kurashasa and symbiotes called Yothkai, but I don’t want to spoil things too much. In addition, the Ahnd’ka also had figured out planar travel, so I needed to fight my way in and destroy the runic obelisk that they were about to use for travel.
Along the way, I had two experiences that I was pleasantly surprised to have had at such an early level. The first was when I attacked some defiled yothkai, otherwise known as green blobs. They were non aggro, and blobs, so I mentally approached them like I would any other small-brained, newb, starter mob. But as I finished off the first one, the right side of my screen lit up like a Christmas tree, and I realized that the blob’s death had spawned three adds! Granted, the adds weren’t overpowering, and I dispatched of them fairly quickly, but it was a refreshing change to see an unexpected twist to a newbie encounter.
The other happened after I had ported into an area that had been overrun with demons. I grabbed some quests, and one of them was called “Be careful where you step.” It turns out that they weren’t kidding, and I found out the hard way that these lands were filled with creatures that are like “Tremors” with arms and legs. Once again, it wasn’t the difficulty of the fight itself that impressed me. It was the fact that unexpected danger lurked beneath the surface, and with each step I had a good chance of disturbing a Naethod and having my ankle chewed off.
Despite my best efforts, some of the Ahnd’ka escaped through their portal. For the Kurashasa, anything less than perfection is failure, and with that comes shame. So I was dispatched to the plains of Lomshir, in the desert of Qalia, to continue my pursuit of the demons.
I began to get wistful at the though of leaving my homeland, and then I remembered the Naethods. I quickly stepped through the portal and didn’t look back!
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Super Sized:
Cute Serpents
Running from my demons
Fire in my eyes
On the Hunt
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Vanguard Level 1-10 | Comments (0)
October 31, 2006
Recently, my home city of Leth Nurae, and all of Thestra actually, has been closed down for some tweaking and polishing, so I was on the hunt for a temporary home, and I settled on one of the most unlikely spots for a high elf — Hathor Zhi, home of the dark elves.
I certainly didn’t intend to pay a visit to the dark elves, but the hustle and bustle of Khal was not my cup of tea, so I had wandered out into the desert looking for a challenge.
One thing I enjoy about travel in Vanguard is that you can see things for miles, and what you see in the distance, you can actually get to. As an aside, I had been playing a dark elf dread knight the week before, and was familiar with the terrain of Hathor Zhi, but didn’t really know what was out in the distance because the cliffs were too high to see over, and I hadn’t made an attempt to travel to the end of the canyon to leave. So I chuckled to myself when I stumbled on that very same canyon while running around the desert. All I could think of is that those little dark elves below had no idea of the vast world looming right over them!
I approached the dark elf dwelling with caution, because I expected more than a little hostility, but to my surprise I was able to enter and do a few quests for them. I’m assuming, though, that when Vanguard is released these dark elves might have a change of opinion about high elves.
Anyway, one quest that I was really eager to do was a quest to get a cloak, because I was tired of watching everyone and their brother running around with one while I still had a big gaping hole in that inventory slot. I was having trouble finding the mob I needed to kill to complete the quest, but thanks to the help of a kind dark elf dread knight (who would have thought that I would use the word kind to describe a dark elf!), I was able to complete the quest and don my new cloak, as well as gain an unlikely friend.
Soon after, I made two more friends while working on another quest to kill Tryndykavlen, a wurm that was up on a plateau surrounded by some rather nasty dark elves. As we cleared the plateau and wrapped up the quest, they asked me where I got my nice cloak! So I did a little act of “pay it forward,” and walked them through the quest. It’s nice to get quests done, but I enjoyed the opportunity to meet new players as much as the quests themselves. While there’s a lot needed to make a solid “community,” the seeds to grow one seem to certainly exist in Vanguard.
Eventually, I made my way across the canyon to Fortress Dragonweir, and talked to the dark elf commander about the army that had been massing near their walls and preparing for an assault. Minutes later, I watched helplessly as an army of undead lined up on the road outside the fortress gate, led by the Aekor (another dark elf faction).
After seeing my screen light up like a Christmas tree with all the names of the invaders attacking me, I summoned my corpse at the altar and decided that, while I had a nice time visiting the dark elves, I didn’t like them enough to keep hurling myself into battle, and death, in order to aid them. (As an aside, I returned the next day to the same spot outside Fortress Dragonweir and did not see the army. I don’t know what triggers their mobilization, but it’s nice to see dynamic content like this in a “newbie” area.)
Besides, I had word that an old friend had surfaced in Mekalia, city of the gnomes, and I had a long journey ahead of me if I was going to get there in time to meet her.
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Here are the links to the full-size screenshots for anyone interested:
The vast Qalian Desert overlooking Hathor Zhi.
Hunting Tryndykavlen with two new friends. (The wurm in the picture is actually the necromancer’s pet, summoned from the corpse of Tryndykavlen. You can see his other pet, an Abomination, nearby)
A creepy skeletal stone hand, part of a storyline quest. Yes, it is part of a full skeleton, and yes, I did get to see all of it above ground.
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Vanguard Level 1-10 | Comments (1)