April 29, 2006
Friday night was one of those nights where I did a little of this, and a little of that, and all along the way I got to be with some really great people. And Mutz too.
First on my plate was some experience, and I was thinking of taking a group into the Shimmering Citadel. So I sent a tell to some of our usual suspects, and Mutz and I grouped up with Tamire, Lauxen, and a fellow guildmate and monk, Cate. We made our way to the Shimmering Citadel, and wandered around a bit. Killed some undead snakes, some wisps, and some djinn but they were only solo mobs (WHY PUT SOLO MOBS DEEP INTO A DUNGEON ZONE MIXED WITH ROAMER HEROICS!) We even found some Kaentrik dirges, playing tunes for the Aravu, and Mutz wittily said, “Look, a Kendricke dirge.” /rimshot
Then we headed up one of the towers, and had a little fun. The first time Mutz and I ever went up one of the glass elevator lifts, we ended up almost dying, because we got ambushed at the top, and Mutz got off, but I stood there like a dumbass and ended up going back down the platform, leaving Mutz to fend for himself. I’m still laughing about how badly we botched that, and how we still managed a way to win. This time we were better prepared, and decided to go up another level, and things got a lot more interesting. I’m guessing it was either because of where we were standing or maybe the way we were killing the mobs, but every time we downed the group of Reclusive Treasure chests on the second floor, they would instantly repop.
We were dealing with them fine, and then started to face the group of djinn heroic mobs from the floor beneath us. No problem, the fight continued and we were doing ok, and then some sets of ghostly looking guards came in, called Wandering Neoums. We still were holding our own, but at the same time, we did want to get on the lift for the next level. So we timed things, hopped on the lift between spawns, and went up, only to get decimated by a group of level 59 heroic Neoums.
At that point our friends Aarant and Nafina logged in, and we had an odd man out. Things worked out though, because our guild leader, Kendricke, was calling an unofficial meeting, mainly to initiate my old friend Urko to the guild. Since I was his advocate, I dropped to make room and met up with him at the guild hall.
After a small but friendly initiation ceremony, Urko was warmly welcomed to the Legion of the White Rose, and Kendricke graciously offered Urko a spot at the bar on a special crafted Guktan stool. But we didnt’ stay long because we had some gnolls to kill in Thundering Steppes, and a level to grab for Urko.
It was just like old times, and I chain pulled the gnolls at the crater. Urko even recalled the time we were pulling the nest dragons and I pulled Yeldema halfway across the zone to the group. I miss those nest dragons! Not long after, Urko dinged 27, and I headed to bed having had a lot of fun with some nice people.
Today picked up where I left off. We did scornfeather’s roost again, with what’s becoming the usual gang: Lauxen, Nafina, Aarant, and Tamire. But this time around, we cleared it much easier than the last time, thanks to some clever casterwork from the warlock crew. Aarant, Tamire, and Nafina remind me of three old friends from Everquest: Ciridan, Maxine and Niniane. A trio of casters, quick to offer aid, easygoing, and, at times, ingenious.
An example of this is today, when we got to our first named harpy. We were going over the rundown, I was bracing myself for some mean hits and that good old stifle, and all of a sudden one of them (I forgot which!), said, “Or we could just lock it.” Before I could finish typing, “What the eff does lock mean?!” I see the huge chain particle effect from their root spell wrapping around the named harpy. Seconds later I see her health bar slide down to the red, and by the time she broke root, she was dead.
“Ok you can pull now!” quipped Aarant.
After drying the tears from my eyes and prying my fingers away from the delete button, I humbly resumed pulls of the “trash” mobs. I have to admit, though, that I watched in admiration as they effortlessly took down the named. It was that same kind of clever teamwork that made me appreciate Maxine, Niniane, and Ciridan. I wonder what those three are up to!
Anyway, long story short, we finished Scornfeather’s Roost, ran around Clefts taking out nameds, snatching up some loot, and raking in a nice bit of experience. Fun weekend, and it’s not even over yet.
Just wrapped up a short little hunting session with Mutz. We duoed some raptors. No loot to speak of, but great experience. 57 and 58 ^^^ heroics. We tried out Cazel’s Mesa tonight but got as far as the first mob before we ran out of things that we were strong enough to take on. A few more levels though and we’ll be back for sure.
Posted by jayernh under ,Archive,Everquest II | Comments (0)
April 28, 2006
I’m going to be upfront about this: I hate twinks. HATE twinks.
Why? Simply because to me, twinking is something you do on the side, when you have played your main so much that you are level capped, raid gear equipped, DKP maxed, AA’d out, tradeskill mastered, and dripping with coin. A twink to me is like one of those squires you see traipsing behind a paladin in Qeynos harbor. They’re fun eye candy, but nothing that I would waste my time to advance, because chances are there is someone’s main character of that same class and level in the guild that could also use help. I played a cleric on the side in Everquest, mainly because you couldn’t do much in a group or on a raid without a healer, and healers were always impossible to find. But I always made sure he was only used as a last resort, and the gear he got was either funded by me on the side or picked up on raids only when rot was the alternative.
I would get irritated when someone in guild would announce they were “changing mains,” only to find out months later that they were changing back (after the twink filled up his bags with nice raid loot). It wasted everyone’s time in the guild, because every time that happened it made progression all that much slower, and farming time all that much longer.
I would get irritated in pick up groups when something dropped that wasn’t particularly usable by any of the classes present, and someone would say, “I have a baby *insert class here* that could really use that!” Oh lovely, so now I’m killing mobs and getting loot for a toon that A) isn’t even here, B) probably isn’t high enough to get the nice item on their own merits, and C) might not even really exist!
I’d get especially irritated at people who pestered the guild for help with epics for their twinks. Epics in Everquest were a torturous affair, and it was bad enough trying to organize the energy and manpower to epicfy mains. Now I’m expected to drop what I”m doing to help camp mobs for a twink?! Thanks, no.
If people were reasonable about twinks, and kept perspective on where twinks stood in the virtual pecking order, I’d have no problem. But too many times, people would start up a twink and the damned thing became a demanding, time consuming, money grubbing, guild disruption.
Now that I got that off my chest, I found a great reason to twink in Everquest 2. Recently, they made a big change to the way class choice worked. Originally, you had to choose one of four general classes (fighter, mage, priest, scout), and then gradually work up the ladder to your specialized class. Now, you start from the beginning as your class, which makes it easier to sample and try out the differences in all the choices. With it, they cleaned up and revamped the Isle of Refuge and the newbie zones, to add more dynamic quests and some neat little dynamic events. The changes sounded very interesting, so I decided I would make a twink!
Meet Hunca Munca!
She’s currently a level 7 shadowknight, and she’s already had some challenging adventures, like:
Defeating an elf on horseback!
Fighting a cow! (I beat Mabel and pried her bell from her cold, dead, hooves.)
And my favorite one, trapping hawks by laying down little white rats as bait…..hey wait a minute, I’m a little white rat!
Anyway, Hunca is a troublemaker, and her real goal is to muck things up for the Overlord in Freeport. She’s off to meet her mentor next, and I’ll update occasionally with her adventures when Mutz isn’t playing and I’m not playing Erika. When she gets a few more levels, she’ll be able to join her friends in the Legion of the Black Rose, a clandestine chapter of my guild that strives to take down Lucan and the denizens of Freeport. And then this:
Will hopefully go the way of the Death Star. (/hat tip to X!)
Posted by jayernh under ,Archive,Everquest II | Comments (3)
April 27, 2006
During the day, I sometimes have a little window of time to play, as I mentioned before, and I like to use that time to do some solo quest stuff and check out some of the more undiscovered territory in the game.
Now that I am level 56, I decided I was experienced enough to being my service to the Ashen Order, an elusive group of monks that reside and train in the Pillars of Flame. The Ashen Order follows Quellious, and believes in self defense as a way to achieve tranquility. I need a little more tranquility in my life, so I started out for their encampment.
I gradually reached Master Akuno Beslin, and began my service to the Ashen Order. I knew that this training would be arduous, and all I could think of was the scene in Kill Bill Vol. 2 when Beatrix Kiddo is being trained by Pai Mei and gets to a point where she’s eating individual grains of rice off the floor with her swollen-knuckled hands.
But the Master Beslin’s tasks are not at all like Pai Mei’s. They’re WORSE! So far, I’ve killed scorpions, sabertooth sandstalkers, a spectre, a harpy, a ton of sandcrawlers (which look like goblins with tiki masks on), falcons, desert prophets, desert lunatics (probably former monks that were doing the service also), and sand pikes. And I’ve only just begun!
On a positive note, I have studied their movements a lot, and learned to be graceful, agile, strong, and crazy (all I could glean from killing desert lunatics was that they were crazy, not much else). I also have used the opportunity to see each and every nook in the Pillars of Flame, a zone I do like, fortunately.
I will continue my service to the Order, and if I can complete enough of these tasks, I will eventually be able to take on more challenging adventures for them, and perhaps earn the title The Jade Tiger. All I can say is, Serenity Now! SERENITY NOW!
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April 26, 2006
Ever have one of those nights where you end up beating mobs that you really didn’t think you had a shot at? Mutz and I had one of those evenings last night. It’s the kind of night that keeps me totally hooked on Everquest 2.
First of all, a quick background. We had sort of been unsure of where to hunt recently. Mutz is 57 now and I’m 56, and both of us liked the desert zones of Desert of Flame a lot, but were itching to get into the Kingdom of Sky. So we went to Tenebrous Tangle, and eventually found a spot with some Thulian tough guys at a little temple on Fear Tainted Island. They were level 58 and 59 heroics. The only problem is that it’s, well, boring, because you pretty much have to sit in the same spot to pull because the surrounding area is lined with trash mobs that aggro.
Above: Temple Grounds and Hidden Refuge below it. Landing pad on the side, where you ride clouds to get from island to island. Yes, you have to jump down the waterfall to get to Hidden Refuge. The sign says, aim for the blue dot, and that’s pretty much what it looks like!
We had that dungeon itch so we decided for our next hunting expedition we’d go back to DoF and hit up a dungeon or instance. I believe the lowest level dungeon in Kingdom of Sky is Sanctum of the Scaleborn, and that’s still out of our range by a few levels. But if I’m wrong someone please feel free to drop me a line, I’m desperately looking for some kind of good list of zones by level for KoS but I can’t seem to find it, especially a dungeon/instance listing for groups.
So last night we settled on heading for Scornfeather’s Roost. It’s a heroic instance in the back of the third floor of Clefts of Rujark. We tried it once with our necromancer friend Seriphim, back a few levels ago, and while we were able to slowly handle the regular mobs, we had no chance at the nameds.
This time around, we went in with the intention of only staying about an hour, figuring we could clear some trash, maybe do one named, and get some ok experience. The way the instance works is that there are five named mobs in this little outdoor valley, and one large, untargettable, named mob named Ibitnaya the Scorned, up on a roost in the center. When you clear the nameds, she becomes targettable, and can drop some nice loot.
This time we grouped up with Seri again, Lauxen, a wizard guildmate, and Timmah, Seriphim’s indispensible pet. Ok, maybe he is pretty dispensible, since we get him killed about a dozen times over the course of a typical night. We were clearing trash mobs with little problem, and the experience was decent. We quickly got to the first named snake, Hurikah Urz, and took him out surprisingly fast. Ok, I thought, things are really clicking tonight!
Above: A master chest drops from one of the nameds. We won a Timmah!
Soon after we reached the second named, Matron Suhailah. And soon after that, we were all reviving at the zone in. It wasn’t even close. Eh, that’s ok, I think to myself, we can just clear around the other side, rack up the experience, and call it a night. Mutz, however, is determined to go right back in and do it again. You’d think we got her to 1% or something. So we go back, die even quicker than last time, and I finally convince him that we should clear the other side.
We clear around and eventually reach another named snake, Ishka Urz, which we felt confident we could take on. You could tell that Mutz was still thinking about the last named though.
“If we die this time I’m deleting Mutz,” he grumbled.
“Oh, where have I heard that before,” I replied. (This was a line I heard about a zillion times in EQ)
“And Erika,” he answered.
!
Well, luckily, we won, and I’m glad to report that Mutz and Erika still exist as characters. We went on to clear more, and everyone really clicked well together. There is nothing like having a solid, skilled, and well balanced group when hunting. When everyone is doing their job, killing yellow heroics really feels like you’re killing tiny rats in the city zones. Then we killed another named snake, and he had one of my favorite names ever — That Which Relentlessly Waits.
At that point, we had a choice. It was getting late, but we basically cleared all of the zone except for the two named harpies that kicked our butts badly. If we beat them, we get to take on the last named, and it would be great to clear the zone after all we had done. So we had a little pow wow, prepped ourselves, tried a new approach, used every trick spell we had, and…..we won!
We ended up killing both named harpy mobs and easily took down Ibitnaya the Scorned, thanks to some nice range pulls from our dress wearing groupmates, Seri and Lauxen.
Above: Final fight of a thrilling evening. Ibitnaya the Scorned getting pummeled by our group.
All in all, it was a memorable night. We pulled in some nice loot, none of which I can recall, and we cleared an instance that we never expected to do. I also had a lot of fun grouping with Seri and Lauxen. Having two skilled DPSr’s in the group makes a world of difference. It’s also fun to fight alongside the little army of summoned things that follow them around. At one point I was surrounded by Lauxen’s little flappy book, Seriphim’s pack of half decomposed attack dogs, and of course, Timmah. It’s like fighting with the cast of the Star Wars cantina.
Scornfeather’s Roost is a great instance if you are looking for something between levels 53 and 58. It’s not a big zone, but it’s different, and we found it to be good for experience and for loot.
For reference, I found this today, after the fact, but it’s a nice guide that explains more about the mobs and their loot tables: http://eq2.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=692
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Everquest II | Comments (2)
April 25, 2006
If you played Everquest, but haven’t seen the Silent City in Everquest 2, think Old Plane of Hate with aqueducts and running water. It’s dark, deathly, and very charming.
Looking back, I think the Old Plane of Hate was one of my favorite raid zones, because there were so many things that everyone was always screaming to do. “Don’t train the safe spot when you camp out on the break!” “Get off the Throne!” (I still laugh when I think about the time Loreleaf maneuvered himself so that he was sitting on the throne) “Pin the Hand!” “Snare the Golems!” and my favorite, “GET OFF THE WALLS!” Everyone was always panicking about raiders running up the walls and getting second floor aggro, so any time someone went even a hair above halfway, everyone and their mother would start screaming at them. Funny thing is, in all the raids I did, I never saw the second floor aggro anyone on the wall, and I did see many people run way up the wall.
I loved the anticipation of going up to Hate. For all its faults, the calendar was fun because it gave the upcoming Hate raid date a sense of importance. Everyone was there, because it would be a long time before you saw it again! Watching everyone make their way to the desert of South Ro and march up to the wizard platform generated a lot of excitement. And the thrill of that death run to the safe spot was intense. It was like winning the lotto if you camped out before being hit by something!
I loved the belt cinching toughness of the first pull, and the scrolls of “Congratulations,” whenever something dropped, because every item was someone’s end game gear. I miss the times when a named mob was merely a larger model of their trash mob counterparts. And even though it was extremely chaotic trying to juggle port groups, collect enough port stones, fit guests on the raid, port up latecomers, retrieve people who took a wrong turn on the way to the throne room, appropriate loot, and clearly give instructions on strategy, it was also something I miss most about the game.
As Mutz and I entered, we were immediately faced with our first challenge. How do we get into the city? We were at the top of a channel, and at the bottom, far down below, was the city. I didnt’ hesitate to jump, confident that my safe fall would easily cushion the drop. Turns out I didn’t need it, because the little pool of water below was deep enough to land in without any damage. Mutz followed, and we began to dispatch of the mobs below.
We took out some ghostly looking wolves, and then pulled a few mobs that resembled the specters from Old Plane of Hate. They even had that eerie sigh when you hit them. Experience was pretty good, and we kept crawling around, eventually clearing the stuff in the front courtyard.
We then found a wall and climbed up to face some rather large gnolls. I recently got a neat little illusion stone from the Splitpaw Arena Trial that makes me into a Splitpaw gnoll, and I wondered if they would maybe hit me a little less harder if I became one of them. I thought it was pretty funny, but I don’t think Mutz was amused. All he said was, “pull.”
Eventually we killed all of them too, and kept moving in. If you are crawling for the first time, and get to the little channels, be careful, because there is a goo looking mob called a channel cleanser that slides through these channels, and there are more than one of them, so invis or be ready to clear them as you move.
We left the Halls of War and entered another courtyard, this one filled with giant trees that brought back memories of Plane of Earth. There were also some groups of mummies sitting inconspicuously near the sides of the courtyard, and I loved how they had a very Egyptian, pharoahish look. We decided this was a good stopping point, but planned to return next time for more good experience and more exploration.
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April 24, 2006
Friday night Mutz and I got to see something not that uncommon — jerkfaces in action. But my night ended with one of the nicest gestures I have experienced in a while, and something that has grown to be very rare in gaming lately.
First the bad. As I mentioned, we have an old friend named Orko who came back to Everquest 2. He is now a froglok conjuror named Urko (Orko was taken, unfortunately). Friday night, Mutz and I hopped over to Stormhold with him (well, he did the hopping mostly) and we mentored him for a little experience boost and a fun return to a zone we liked.
For those of you who don’t play Everquest 2, mentoring means that Mutz and I basically scale down to Urko’s level. So we became level 18, and all our skills and gear scale down with us. It’s a really nice way to be able to group up no matter what the level. The catch is that our experience is slower, but the good part is that Orko gets a certain percentage boost for every person that directly mentors him. So in about 2 hours he got a level and a half, and is almost level 20. So for any other old friends who want to come play, send me a tell and I’ll mentor you sometime! You know who you are!
Above: Waterfall in Antonica on the way to Stormhold. One of my favorite spots in the zone.
We had a lot of fun crawling around the zone. We eventually got to a room where a named mob spawns that can drop a master chest, which is big and metal, as opposed to the wooden ones. His name is Guard Captain Hess, and he’s a skeleton in a room lined with groups of skeletons. We began clearing, and there must have been about 6 groups of skeletons that we fought to get to him.
Just as we were finishing off the last set of skeletons, I hear Mutz say, “Pull now.” And as I turn to fling a shuriken at the Guard Captain, I notice a group run past us and attack him.
…………………..
“You’re welcome for us clearing all the mobs in here so that you could grab him.” I say to the group.
“I hope he drops a master chest and it lands on your toe,” said Mutz. (He doesn’t talk much, but when he says something it’s usually the most quotable line of the evening)
“Or other digit!” I added lamely.
“I wonder where you found that grease so that you could slide on by us,” added Urko.
Not one word from any of them this whole time, and by now the mob was dead and they were standing over, you guessed it, a master chest.
“I think we found Angeltime, Urko,” I noted.
Angeltime was a guild on our old server that was largely Asian, and they used to have a reputation of using their lack of english to excuse their rotten habit of training, ninja’ing, ganking nameds, and being all around antisocial pariahs.
This group of asshats looted up and moved on, not a word in reply to what they had just done.
“At least a kiss my ass would have been nice,” muttered Mutz.
“I don’t feel at all satisfied,” I said. And I didn’t. Honestly, it wasn’t about the loot, and it wasn’t about the mob. At that point, it was about wanting to yell back and forth at them, so I could fully vent, scream a few bad words, and send some virtual spit in their direction. Would the outcome be any different? Of course not! But I’d feel better knowing that they cared enough to defend their action by replying to us. Their total silence really stuck it to us, and their indifference got under my skin worse than any defense or reply they could have given. We lost the mob, the loot, and the opportunity to have a war of words. A hat trick of defeat!
And now the good. We recently met some nice warlocks from a guild called Windwalkers. We grouped up with them a couple of times in the Silent City, a really nice zone that we explored last week. (More on that another time) We ended up adding each other’s names to our friends list, and I got a tell from one of them, Aarant, Friday night, asking if we were up for grouping. I explained that we were mentoring Urko and kinda booked for the evening. Totally unsolicited, Aarant offered up abut 15-20 collection items to Urko. Collection quests net some nice experience at lower levels, and the items themselves can be a nice cash cow. So it was extremely generous to give them away, especially to a friend of a new found friend that you haven’t even met.
So, thank you Aarant, for bringing back memories of when I first started playing Everquest, and people used to be more cooperative and generous. I remember many times when I first started out, and a stranger would come up and stick a weapon in a trade window. Sure, it might have been a rusty bastard sword, but back then, it was an improvement. I remember seeing people huddled outside Crushbone, licking their wounds and working together to gradually chip away at the train that was on the other side.
And I even remember dying once in lesser faydark to an orc centurion (He seemed so huge back then!). A ranger asked me to /consent him, and I was so panicked about not being able to recover my newly acquired set of tattered leather armor, I did it. I quickly realized that he would be able to loot all my gear, and as the seconds ticked by, I was trying to take deep breaths and cope with the fact that I had just been suckered.
But a few minutes later, I got another tell. It was from the same ranger, and he said to meet him at the Felwithe gates. Encouraged, I ran up to the guards, and there he was. As he dropped each and every item into my trade window, I remember feeling that the music of the Felwithe gates really fit the moment. Sometimes I wish I was less cynical now, and had more of that open armed trust that I had when I began playing. But episodes like the Captain Hess incident have jaded me too much I think.
Overall, I had a fun night that night. Mutz and I got to hunt again with an old friend. We have made some new friends that we look forward to grouping with more in the future. And even though I won’t print their names here, to those that took our pull from us, I know who you are, and I believe in karma, so watch your backs, because I know you’ll get it right back at you someday. I just hope I’m there to see it.
Random picture below: We zoned into a trial zone version of an instance called Nest of the Great Egg. The trial version was put in place for people to practice for a Fan Faire contest, so there’s no exp from the mobs. But this was a kinda cool shot I thought. Can’t wait to see the real thing when we reach level.
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Everquest II | Comments (2)
April 21, 2006
Not much time to write today, we have a birthday party planned this weekend. Thought I’d toss up a funny picture though. This is me in Willow Wood:
I love totems. Love, love, love them. No, not because they turn you into weird things, but because they give some great boosts to out of combat power (mana) and health regen, among other things.
I love pulling, and I hate standing around when we are grinding out levels. But one thing I found about being a monk is that we have a nagging problem of running out of power a lot of times, because of all the combat skills and taunts we have. So, the faster I can regen between fights, the faster I can pull and the faster I can kill stuff. Food and drink help a lot, but these totems really are the icing on the cake.
If you haven’t tried them already, I’d highly recommend it. Brea, our tradeskill buddy and mid-level madness coordinator, put up a quick list of totems that can be made. Link is here:
http://eq2.eqtraders.com/articles/article_page.php?article=g75
They’re great for people like me who want to make the most of every second of downtime, since I don’t like downtime. They’re great for soloers who don’t have heals and dont’ like to stand around waiting to regen up. And they’re great for people who like to look like weird things. My favorite was the beholder, a huge lumpy thing with lots of tentacles and eyes at the ends. You can, however, turn off illusions in the persona window, so you get the buff without the illusion. Mutz made me use that when I got in his face as a beholder.
So just remember that if you are ever grouping with me, and you aren’t holding your own, be careful, because I might go monkey and start flinging poo.
Here’s another cool shot I just felt like tossing up here today. I was crossing the Sinking Sands (I have to get out of the desert) and liked the view at dusk.
Seconds later that little dust storm blew over me and hurled me in the air like a little rag doll. Watch out for those little tornados, they’ll get ya!
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