September 27, 2006
“Deathtoll in the Overrealm is a very private place to the Awakened. There are reasons the place was called that. They may not be evident to those that defy law and step foot into Deathtoll, but hints exist. The Awakened created this undead sanctuary for no one else. It exists as a vault of treasures, memories and trophies of defiance. There is a relation between myths and what we all know as fact.”
– GM Vhalen, from this thread on the EQ2 forums
Last week I had the chance to visit Deathtoll with Timeless. Seeing it made me wish I knew more about the lore of this zone, as well as its inhabitants. From what I have read, Deathtoll is the treasure trove for the Cult of the Awakened, which is led by Kerafyrm. Tarinax, the boss mob of the zone, was caught trying to form an alliance to help Nagafen and Vox escape their imprisonment, and for his punishment, he was killed, his soul was taken and placed in the Obelisk of Lost Souls, and his skeletal form was reanimated by Kerafyrm in order to guard the domain.
It’s odd that a zone filled with signs of death can also be beautiful. I often found myself so interested in the zone and its ambiance that I had a hard time keeping myself alert for the constant combat. And if there’s one thing that’s imperative to remember in Deathtoll, it’s to never, ever, ever, step anywhere that hasn’t already been “swept” by someone wearing heavy metal.
If you are looking for more raid info on the mobs, there are good write-ups here, here, and here.
I know there was a big argument about the fact that Deathtoll was easier to access because the dragons that have to be killed are no longer contested spawns. But I’m glad they did. It’s a unique zone, it’s still extremely challenging to get into, and I believe that a guild’s progress should be hindered only by the content itself, not by the actions of another guild.
While I didn’t get to see Tarinax die that evening, I did get to see some impressive encounters, and I even got to see us kill a gnome. A successful night in my book!
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Everquest II | Comments (1)
September 25, 2006
Been busy beyond belief, but I did have a chance to raid a couple times recently, so I’ll be posting up a lot more tomorrow. In the meantime, I made a new friend:
More tomorrow!
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September 19, 2006
Avast! Today is International Talk like a Pirate Day. I decided to celebrate the occasion in game today. But how?
Obviously I can go around saying Yarr and Ahoy, but I felt this was an important enough day that it warranted something extraordinary! So I broke out my pirate flag, proudly displayed it in my home, and headed to the streets of Qeynos to spread some pirate glee.
I headed on down to the broker to check out the loot, and found some pirate treasure! Sadly, it seems that pirate booty is not what it used to be, because I think I spent about a total of 75 silver on all the items I scooped up. There was one shrewd broker who decided to put a pair of smelly pirate pantalons for sale for 1400 plat, but I passed on those. Instead, I grabbed things like, dirty pirate’s bracer, smelly pirate’s cowl, pirate coin necklace, and rusted pirate’s foil, among other things.
I then sent out some pirate treasure along with a little rhyme:
Ahoy! Avast!
Today at last
Is Talk like a Pirate Day!
It is with pleasure
that I send you this treasure.
Yo, ho, ho, and anchor’s away!
I then headed over to the bartender, in the hope that I could find a good pirate drink, but there wasn’t really anything that met the spirit of being a hearty pirate. I suppose Dwarven Ale comes closest. Tier’Dal Blood Wine sure doesn’t — what pirate drinks sissy elf wine, even if it does have the word blood in it. (On a side note, why does the bartender in Qeynos Harbor sell Lucan’s Lager, but there isn’t any Tunare’s Finest for sale? Isn’t that treachery?!)
So for today, at least, I salute the scummy men of the world’s waterways, who pillaged ships and terrorized the high seas, and continue to do so even today! (Although on a far less romantic scale)
Argh! Have a great day! Shiver me timbers!
Here’s some pirate lingo to use around the office and other places. (Site is somewhat slow)
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September 18, 2006
It’s been a while since my last entry, for two reasons. One was to allow a proper tribute last week to the victims of 9/11, and the other was that things got very busy around here. You’d think that with the start of fall, things would slow down a bit, but I guess not! I did play a bit last week though, so it’s time to play a little catch up.
First of all, Mutz and I settled into a new guild, Timeless. We joined last week, and although we haven’t had a chance to do any guild stuff yet, we are looking forward to it. We miss raiding!
We also got to meet up with Kazer and Mortmanus, two friends that we have grouped with a lot. It was one of those nights, though, that seemed like no matter what we did, nothing clicked. We headed over to check out the new Nektropos instance, but quickly realized that we were on pace to finish the dungeon in about 3 or 4 days. Since we only had a couple of hours to play, we figured we’d head over to Tenebrous Tangle to help Kazer do a few of the initial steps in the Claymore Quest.
Above: The entrance to the level 70 Nektropos instance.
Somewhere along the way, Mutz died. I think it was from the waterfall drop, but I’m not sure because all I could get out of him was a bunch of words that I can’t print here. Of course, it was my fault, because he was typing a tell to me while on autorun. His death happened to be the tenth death without repairing his gear, so you know what that means! Mutz immediately went into a rant about how dumb it is to have to mend, and right after that he starts in on how ridiculous it is that your gear all goes into the overflow slot, rather than just let it stay in the inventory slots and have it lose its attributes until repaired. (I do agree about that actually) His rant always ends with a long speech about how much he hates inventory management, and how irritated he is at how hard it is to find items that are in your bags. It’s a great rant, and sometime I’ll have to have him dictate it to me so I can post it up verbatim.
Above: Fighting Azdalin. We got updates for A Thorn of Old from killing him. Reminds me of the beach in Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Anyway, we finished our night in Sanctum of the Scaleborn, going after Mr Bozar to help Kazer and Mortmanus inch that much closer along the quest line. We met a small group that was also on the step, and combined forces to make sure everyone could get the credit.
Mutz and I have to go learn draconic sometime soon so that we can get moving on the quest again. Makes me wish for the old days of Everquest, when learning a language meant grouping up with someone, having them spam a hotkey with lines of text like dagjewgawglejglkajelaj for about an hour, and then zoning back and forth to check how much your skill increased. I even remember going to a couple of language fairs, in the good old EC tunnel! I miss that.
Some people always scoffed and said learning languages was useless. But I say, there is nothing cooler than being able to speak faerie!
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September 11, 2006
Today I am devoting my blog to join thousands of other bloggers in paying tribute to each of the 2,996 victims of the 9/11 attacks. The blog tributes were organized by Dale Roe, and with his efforts, every victim has an assigned blogger who will pay tribute. When I heard about this project, I immediately signed up, and I was assigned to write about Joseph Zaccoli.
Around 7:30 AM on the morning of September 11th, 2001, Joseph Zaccoli arrived at his office on the 104th floor of One World Trade Center, where he worked for Cantor-Fitzgerald as a bonds broker.
His day was to be like any other — catch the early train from Long Island, put in a hard days work with the company he loved, and get home in time to be with the family he loved even more. His daughter was about to have her 11th birthday. His wife, Helen, had just started a job teaching theology at Kellenberg Memorial High School. Basketball season was just around the corner, and he loved coaching his kids’ basketball teams. “Shooter,” as he was nicknamed, had the best shot in the family. And while summer was over, he always got the most of it during the family vacations to the beach.
A little over an hour after he arrived at work, American Airlines Flight 11 struck his building, between the 94th and 98th floors. Joe was trapped above. He couldn’t get in touch with his wife, but he did reach his father-in-law, Neil Griffin. He said, “‘call my wife and go pick up my kids. I’m OK now. I’ll do everything I can.”
His body was recovered 6 days later, and amazingly, his wedding ring was also recovered and returned to his wife. The inscription on his ring said, “Till death.” His wife’s said, “Till us part.”
As his brother-in-law, Christopher Griffin, said of him, he was a “devoted father, wonderful husband to my sister, extraordinary sense of humor, a man who persevered.” Every morning, he would bring muffins and coffee to his wife. Every year, he would send roses to his mother. He was very involved with his children, especially their sports teams.
His brother-in-law, Ray, wrote a tribute of 100 words for Joe:
Man, son, husband, father, Daddy, brother, uncle, coach, friend, family man, in-law, practical joker, loud laugher, maniac with a vacuum, sharp dresser, pizza lover, bagel buyer, muffin getter, movie lover, movie dialogue memorizer (sometimes over did it), wallet loser, wallet finder, composure keeper, Ocean City boogie-boarder, summer crew cut wearer, nothing but netter, carrot cake devourer, hoops lover, book reader, life of the party, number cruncher, Knick ticket getter, loved his wife, but drove her crazy, bargain hunter, real estate mogul, Survivor in our hearts, special to us all, we miss you, we love you, we’ll never forget you
In Remembrance of Joseph Zaccoli, Age 39, Valley Stream, New York
Sources used:
September 11th Victims
Cantor Fitzgerald Families Memorial
Newdsay
September 11th Memorial
Wall of Americans
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September 8, 2006
Another day, another voyage filled with curious images.
I noticed that the new prophets are sporting some high fashion hats, which brings the question, WHERE CAN I GET ONE?!
I’m the kind of person who will do a level 1 quest if it means I get a piece of armor, or clothing, that has a unique appearance. I am a diehard gi collector. So when I saw these prophets today, I was too filled with jealousy to even begin to think about the coming of the gods!
The other curious sighting leads me to believe there is a solid foundation to start working on a conspiracy theory….or…..something like that. Observe Exhibit A:
This is the fountain in Graystone Yard, which has been there since release years ago.
Now check out Exhibit B:
This is the logo for Sigil Games, which is known for its soon-to-be-released online game “Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.”
Coincidence?! I think not! Let the wild speculation commence!
On a totally different note, I’ll be taking a pause in my online gaming writeups next week, and devoting my site to an online blogging project remembering 9/11. So starting Saturday I’ll respectfully be pushing all the gaming blogs off the front page, because it’s time to remember.
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Everquest II | Comments (0)
September 7, 2006
WARNING — Do not read below if you don’t want details on the new World Event from Sensei Makoto Shoda, who is a prophet of Tranquility.
I traveled out to Zek, the Orcish Wastes, because I had heard that Sensei Makoto was seen there recently. I remembered visiting him on several occasions in the Eldaar Grove, and had missed him when he had suddenly taken leave.
When I arrived, he immediately told me about the difficulties in trying to bring peace to Norrath. He went on to explain that some of my fellow monks had been enslaved and imprisoned by the minions of War, inside Deathfist Citadel. I offered to help, immediately tightening up my Gi and donning my fistwraps. But Sensei Makoto pointed out that, as a follower of Tranquility, I cannot harm anyone, even the foul orcs that have taken the Ashen Order Monks. Instead, I was to choose 5 gifts from a selection of 10, which would help me reach the monks and escape, without doing any harm. Once I found the monks, I was to use a teleportation rod to send them out safely, and then I was to find my way back to the entrance to arrange my own safe exit.
I immediately agreed and was sent to Deathfist Citadel. As I entered, I saw the gifts to be chosen:
Force of Cessation (An AE stun), Elixir of the Beyond (A Feign Death with 100% chance of success), Touch of the Peacemaker (a 100% heal), Ataraxic Shroud (An Invis), Draught of the Orcish Skin (An orc Illusion YEAH!), Blessing of the Tranquil (Another heal), Tonic of Acceleration (A speed increaser), State of Tranquility (An AE Mez), Armor of Peace (A ward that gives like 100000000 protection), and Memories of Peace (A Mem Blur).
I carefully made my choices and started in. One thing to add is that self invis, chameleon totems, and feign death all work fine in here, so while the 5 choices do help, you are certainly not limited to those while making your way in. Also, if you don’t have it, there is a map of the Deathfist Citadel Sewers that gives you a decent layout of the instance for this quest.
What I quickly noticed was that most of the orcs saw poorly in the dim light of the sewers, and the only ones that could see me while invis were the “Deathfist orcs,” who also seem to be the only ones that go on patrols. I moved slowly and cautiously, watching their patrol routes and timing things so that I could take care of them using the gifts, without aggroing tons more further down the halls.
Eventually, I reached the jails, where I found four of my brothers and sisters. I discovered the main switch to release the cell locks, and then used the hand levers to open each cell door. I happily sent the monks to their safety, but as I ported the fourth one out I realized my job wasn’t done yet.
I continued in, using my AE mez gift to get past the see invis orc, and then invising into the rear room. I slipped inside, to the near left corner of the room, and reached the last, injured, monk. I ported him out to safety without any aggro from the two orcs inside. Mission completion!
The last task was to retrace my steps and zone out at the same spot where I entered. Using the last of my gifts, as well as a few well-timed feign deaths of my own, I made it to the water, and to safety.
In gratitude for my bravery, Sensei Makoto rewarded me with my very own Pool of Tranquility, which blesses whoever touches it with a 60 minute power increase. (487 at level 70)
As I sat in meditation in my room, I thought about what I had learned. Sensei Makoto reminded me of the teachings of Quellious, and while I was often tempted to use my finely skilled martial arts on the orcs, it was even more rewarding to carry out my mission peacefully. Just knowing that the orcs lived to see my success is reward enough.
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