February 27, 2010
This is more of a “thinking out loud” post to get all the EQ2 tokens straight in my head.
Above: The Caertaxian Legion lobbing a cannon at the enemy in The Hole. The cannonball? A trapped ratonga prisoner in a barrel.
Marks of Manaar
First off, the main token from Sentinel’s Fate that players will be accruing is the Mark of Manaar. There are several ways to get these, and they can be turned in to NPCs Jeleth, Falakhar, and Jarnera in Paineel for various armor, jewelery, and weapons. (Found just up the ramp from the collector NPC/mailbox.) **Update – I forgot to mention the gear vendors in Moonfield Hamlet. So I assume there are more to be found** You can get them from running Sentinel’s Fate instances, both by killing instances bosses and finding the key mob that opens the chest in the zone. You can also get them from the daily mission in the Hole, offered by Jael. In addition, you can get them by killing bosses in any of the TSO instances that scale up to level 90. Yes, the same instances that offer..
Void Shards
These are the main token currency from the previous expansion, and these were used to make the 4 different sets of TSO “tier” armor. You could get void shards from group instance quest rewards, unlocking chests within the instance, by killing certain bosses, and from running the solo shard mission in Lavastorm. No, I don’t believe there is a solo mission for Marks of Manaar. No, I don’t know why that is, don’t take my head off! **Update – There is actually a solo Mark mission when you reach level 90. Thanks Gnova for the hat tip!** Generally speaking, the lower tier sets will be sub par compared to the new gear you can get from group drops and Mark armor. There is an important difference between TSO and Sentinel’s Fate – in TSO, all armor was purchased with the same currency – Void Shards. In Sentinel’s Fate, you purchase “heroic” (group) armor with Marks of Manaer, but you purchase “fabled” (raid) armor with…
Above: “I don’t know what I want to purchase, all right?! …pushy Erudins!”
Seals of Arad
These tokens drop from raid encounters, and are used to buy Fabled raid gear from the Traders of Arad in Paineel, Sehesh and Kal’Jeketh (found just up the ramp from the collector NPC). The raid gear has an important benefit – you can put two adornments in them. The white adornment is a player made item that can be used on all types of Sentinel’s Fate armor. The red adornment, however, can only be placed on raid armor, and is the equivalent of a set bonus. The upside to this is that you don’t have to face that issue of wanting to wear an upgrade but not wanting to break up a set and lose the bonus. If you think you finally have it all straight, think again, because there are also…
Battleground Tokens
And not just one type of token, but three! Each of the three Battlegrounds has its own type of token currency – Klak-Anon Cogs for doing the 6 man relic instance, Battlefield of Ganak Trophy for running the 12 man capture the flag instance, and Smuggler’s Den Special Reserve Rum for running the 24 man control territory instance. You get three tokens for winning a match, one for losing. You can purchase Battleground gear, with PvP-friendly stats, from merchants in the city, and many items require a combination of more than one type of token, along with some coin.
Above: 6 players, 7 undead pets, one skeletal cow pet, a ghostly wolf, and one tiny wolfman pet, versus some poor slob. (seriously, what the heck *is* that little two legged pet in the middle of the fight?!)
I hope I got it right, please help correct me if I missed something! And of course, you can always choose to forego all tokens and focus on building up faction in various areas to purchase armor. Let’s see, there’s Kerran, Caertaxian, Guardians of the Underfoot, Defenders of the Seal…..
Oh man.
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February 23, 2010
It’s been a week, here are my thoughts so far about EQ2′s latest expansion:
- 10 years later, we still haven’t grown tired of jokes about “The Hole.”
Above: I don’t think, at this steep angle, that we should be sliding off. What makes you think that?!
- Quest items are killing me! I’ve never been a fan of quest “stuff,” and this expansion seems to relish in sticking tons and tons of quest related items in my inventory. I know we get bigger backpacks this expansion, but within the first two days, I was carrying around severed paws, rheumy eyeballs, idols of dartain, ghostly residuum, relics of paineel, three different leashes to capture creatures, and faction costumes. On top of that, add in collectibles, status relics (several different kinds!), mystic stones, ethereal strands, meaty flesh bones, globes of water, lore and legend parts, adepts, and tradeskill recipes, and there’s basically no room for the fancy gear, weapons, and masters. Pequin, a guildmate, won about a dozen rolls tonight with a full inventory, and seeing that red message over and over almost made me think we should coin a phrase – Need, Greed, or Pequin!
- Leveling is refreshing (I can’t believe I’m saying that!) Dinging an AA is nothing like dinging a level. The additional levels change how we’ve been playing the game for the past 2+ years. Abilities, gear, skills, all need to be upgraded, and even more noteworthy, content from the past becomes much easier, it not trivial in some cases. Those extra ten levels mean we get to go back and solo some horrible mob that gave us such fits in the past. You know you love doing that.
Above: The Vasty Deep.
- For all the puzzle solving and challenges involved with completing TSO instances, there is a refreshing simplicity to the SF content I’ve experienced so far. I’m not saying one is better than the other, but sometimes when you’ve done the kabuki dance a thousand times, it’s nice to veg out and do the sprinkler. The sprinkler can get old, fast, however…
Above: The Seal of the Underfoot.
- Hooray for the Hole! Yes, I know there were some less than savory things that people were doing in the Hole to speed level through to 90. Yes, I know that there’s a good chance the zone runs the risk of being a disposable content ghost town by summer, once everyone has leveled to 90. (Although that could be mitigated if the 30+ nameds share a couple of very rare and valuable items on their loot tables, like a Sentinel’s Fate version of the Runnyeye Cloak or Najena’s ring). But right now, I’m having a great time in the Hole. (Yep, insert joke here).
Above: Yes, STO and Eve, we have our super cool star nebula, milky way, galaxy things too. And our space ships are top-down convertibles, so warp this!
- I love the fact that I can take a motley group to the Hole and get stuff done. In TSO, a successful instance run often meant a very particular group set up, and as a result, the Holy Trinity was alive and well in EQ2. So a group with a tank, healer, two rangers and two conjurors was unlikely. I’ve heard the grumbling about the hole being too easy, but personally I prefer having the flexibility to bring good guildmates, and not have to worry about filling specific slots with specific classes.
- I also love leveling by grinding mobs, rather than multitasking lots of little, piddly, quests. I know I’m probably the only one left on the planet that feels that way, but I really don’t enjoy having quests drive my decisions on where to explore, what to kill, and when to leave.
- I don’t get the whole costume/faction thing in the Hole, and I’ve read that it’s not even working properly, but any time I see a player run by me in the Gruengach illusion, I giggle.
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February 22, 2010
When the Erudites discovered the Vasty Deep, they set up a citadel to study the magic of the waters and the creatures that lived there. In their conservatory, they studied the plant life of the Vasty Deep, and that’s where a group of us went last night. The Erudites were long gone, and despite the fact that the place was stunningly gorgeous, you could tell they left under less than ideal circumstances.
We had a hard time getting into the zone initially, but I think that was just typical launch night server burping. Our first group gave up, but we lucked out later in the evening and got in.
Most of the mobs in the Conservatory are in the mid 80′s, but didn’t seem to be too bad. Pulls were straightforward and fairly add-free if you were heads up. Some of the tree mobs had knockbacks, which made Ebice, our main tank, rage a bit, but other than that, clearing was cake.
The zone layout is pretty clear, and in each new area it was the standard “kill trash to make the named targettable.” Sutek, our dirge, pointed out that whoever made the zone must have been a follower of D&D, because the mobs resembled classic mobs from the original game. There weren’t any real tricks with most of the nameds we fought. Riyadh took us by surprise, by suddenly spawning adds every 20% (I think it was 20) and becoming immune to damage, but after a few seconds of confusion we switch off to the adds and took them down. He also had some sort of AE that temporarily incapacitated our tank, but with two stellar healers and a little swashie roadbump off-tanking, we dealt with it ok.
The fun came with Delahnus the Dauntless. The first glimpse of Delahnus, on top of a watery pedastal, surrounded by blue waterfalls, was enough to make me pause – and rapid fire click my screenshot key. After we cleared the area, we cinched up our armor and got ready to pull.
Big mistake.
If you don’t blink, you have just enough time to see Delahnus take flight, and then an instant later, finish off your group with Wings of Destruction. We regrouped and charged up, learned that he has a tail swipe (ouch), he AEs, and every 10% he decides to stop fighting, fly up above, and yap at us about us not being worthy, or being foolish, or something mean. We treated him like Aiden, and focused on fighting him in front, and staying in front when he was about to land, and that seemed to do the trick. To our surprise, he gave up when we got him down to 50%, and let us take his loot.
After that, we backtracked to a side hall that we hadn’t cleared before, and got a huge laugh when we finished the trash and got the big red message that something was stirring in the water. Our templar, Orko, jumped and ran out of the water so fast – I’ve never seen someone in plate move like that!
One final note, the aqueous devourer is the key mob for the chest. (Yes, there are new tokens that you have to farm. Yay) He’s found in the water around the back of Delahnus’ pedestal, and can be pulled safely out of there without aggroing the dragon. Just want to say “your welcome” to my group, for insisting that we go back there and pull it. You know who you are.
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February 17, 2010
It’s accepted belief that launch days for expansions are basically throw away days, because with all the delivery glitches, the patching, server instability, and bugs, no one can get anything done. That wasn’t the case today with the launch of Sentinel’s Fate. Servers were up by mid morning, patching went pretty fast, even for those arriving at home at night, and the only real problem was the fact that zones were a bit laggy (depending on which copy you were in), because some were jam packed with people.
Above: I jumped into the hole. Yeah, I had to. Where is the DA cleric omg!?
After the first day, I can say two things – I had a great time, and I took a ton of screenshots. I haven’t taken this many screenshots since Vanguard, and really, these zones are gorgeous. And huge! I was in the hole tonight, with over 90 other people, and only saw one group pass by. In fact, the only reason I knew there were so many others there is that I had to deal with all the lag during fights.
Apparently there is a focus on telling the story of Sentinel’s Fate visually, through the zones and all the little details that people come across as they explore. If that was the goal, they nailed it. I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the expansion content, and there are already tons of questions I have about things that I’ve seen.
Like, how badly will I get my butt kicked in there? (over 57 k damage in full T4 apparently)
And why on earth are there snakes sticking out of all the panthers in Odus? Even when they’re dead, they’re still there.
And can you please convert this rope bridge into an escalator? My feet are killing me!
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February 16, 2010
I got a chance to monkey around with EQ2′s Battlegrounds yesterday, and what I saw I really liked. It’s still too early to tell how things will go, and as the Producer’s Letter indicates, Battlegrounds will launch with a pre-season warmup, in order to smooth out all the “unintended” stuff that will assuredly pop up. Yes, it does feel like we’re all going to be paying beta testers to some extent, but then again, it’s probably the best way to integrate such large scale PvP content into a game that’s PvE at heart.
I got to sample the 6 vs 6 and 12 vs 12 Battlegrounds. You can queue yourself up by hitting alt-z and then clicking on the Battlegrounds tab. There are also quest givers for the 3 Battlegrounds instances, that offer repeatable quests to kill opponents and win matches. And nearby are the token vendors, which offer up armor, house items, charms, and a nice floating disc mount. Each Battleground has its own token currency, and some items require a combination of different types, along with status and plat. In addition to the normal stats found on armor, the PvP token sets also have special stats that are PvP specific, so it does seem like they tried to address the issue of PvP armor vs raid armor.
In the 6 vs 6 Battleground, called Gears of Klak’Anon, you’re ported to a zone full of ramps, platforms, hallways, and elevators. If you like gnomes and tinkering, you’ll have fun in this zone. The goal is for your team to acquire and hold a relic longer than your opponent’s team.
Above: The Gears of Klak’Anon. You can see the relic in the middle of the picture.
In the 12 vs 12 Battleground, called Battlefield of Ganak, you have to capture your opponents flag and bring it back to your fort. If you do this three times, your team wins. This one was originally 6 vs 6 but they made it larger, and wisely so. The zone is definitely big enough to handle 24 players, and it definitely ramps up the excitement.
Overall, I enjoyed both of the zones I tried out. Waaaaay back when WoW first came out, I used to do a lot of Battlegrounds, but always had to run with PUGs, and longed for the day when I could run them with friends in an organized team. I’m not a PvPr at heart, but I can see myself having a blast working together with guildmates to outwit the opposing team.
There were a few things that made me pause though, during my brief playtime. One was that every Battleground was very lopsided. It was pretty clear who was going to win almost from the start. The other was that there seemed to be a bug with “Truancy,” which is a detrimental buff placed on you that prevents you from entering another queue for 5 minutes. It’s meant for people who leave a Battleground before it’s over, but I got hit with it once after our Battleground had expired.
Above: Laying the smackdown on a thug tank. He’s even in black, so we know he’s the bad guy. I really need to improve my trash talk lexicon.
Lastly, here are a few tips I picked up that might be handy to anyone who, like me, is completely new to EQ2 PvP:
- If you go into your options menu, select “Controls” and then “Targetting keys,” you can scroll down and assign a hot button that lets you target the nearest PvP enemy. It’s sorta like tab targetting NPCs, and can come in very handy.
- Scouts, get your tracking up and visible! It can come in handy in the larger Battleground zones. While I didn’t get a chance to play the 24 man zone, I’d imagine having a “spotter,” like I recall in WoW’s BGs, will be extremely helpful.
- Set up a main assist, just like in PvE encounters.
- Evac is disabled in PvP zones, and stealth doesn’t make you completely invisible, just gives you that lucid outline. So don’t strut into the enemy fortress in stealth thinking you’re all that and a bag of chips, doing the “ride the pony” dance, because you’re going to get slapped down. At least, that’s what someone told me. I don’t know for sure, let’s talk about something else!
- If you’re going to get super serious, you should probably consider getting an AA mirror, and looking into class specs that are more suited to PvP.
- Don’t forget to cure yourself. And in general, clickies are good. The more you stock up, the better.
I know there are lots of other great tips for PvP tactics, so if you have any please share them up! I promise not to use them on you if we meet in battle. No guarantees on doing the “ride the pony” dance though.
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February 15, 2010
This was an expansion full of scripts, puzzles, and challenging content. I played catch on a trampoline in Obelisk of Ahkzul, built a “not as massive” golem to keep a X2 epic golem busy while we smacked down his boss, went all Twilight emo vampire and fled from the sun in Evernight Abbey, and soared back and forth on flaming tornadoes carrying boulders to block Aiden’s portals.
But I’d be willing to wager that, by far, the most used content during The Shadow Odyssey expansion was the Lavastorm solo shard quest.
Above: I hate you so much, void guy. But you’re me. How did it come to this? I’m crestfallen and confused.
It was patched later on after the expansion released, and it’s arguably the most mind-numbingly boring, foregone conclusion evoking, 15 minute, 3 key spamming content ever created, but because the reward (a shard) was so important, everyone played it. Sometimes 2-3 times a night, depending on how many toons/accounts a person had. I’d also wager that many EQ2 players never even experienced many of the fun and creative encounters from the Shadow Odyssey instances. For them, their TSO experience is framed entirely by the Lavastorm solo shard quest.
Just saying…
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February 14, 2010
This was a really special episode for me, because I remember two things about the blogging world back when I started up in 2006. 1) There weren’t nearly as many bloggers as there are now, and 2) Stargrace was one of the most prominent of the bunch.
It took several rounds of careful negotiations, not only to satisfy Stargrace, but also Princess, her cat. Several cases of Cristal and a few cans of Fancy Feast later, we got our guest(s)!
I feel like we barely scratched the surface, but we got to pick her brain on several topics about the game she plays, the guilds she’s been in, and how she manages that with her writing career.
From the “official” show notes:
- What are we up to? Karen, Adam and Stephanie discuss what they’ve been up to in the MMO sphere. Find out what Stephanie isn’t playing!
- EverQuest II Sentinel’s Fate releases on Tuesday. Are we excited?
- There is no snow in Canada?!
- Give an MMO a fair chance. We discuss going past the first 10 levels before making a snap judgment on a game.
- What games are guild friendly? Who is the most friendly company when it comes to player organizations? Stephanie tells all!
- What do hardcore and casual guilds share in common? Perhaps they’re not as different as people think!
- We couldn’t do VftT without talking about EverQuest II. We look at the state of guilds in that title!
- You make the call! How do you take a casual raid guild to the big time and become a bit more serious?
- Guest Topic time! General features that every MMO should have!
This was one of those shows where I wish we had more time, because I have so many things I’d love to ask Stephanie. (So keep an eye on that inbox, Stargrace!) It was also one of those shows where there were a lot of hilarious moments – so much so that I’m probably going to splice them together to put out an entire episode of bloopers/silly stuff. So even if Stargrace decides not to start up her own podcast, we’ll still get to hear more from her in the near future!
Tune in here to check out the episode, and thanks again to Stephanie and Adam for a fun show!
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