Any ideas? One hint.. Rat Queen.

I spent the weekend relaxing before the server transfers go live (which I think will start on Tuesday now, since the EU PvP server merge is a 24 hour ordeal). I took everything out of my shared banks so that it wouldn’t get left behind, removed all my items from broker including the containers, and made sure my characters actually physically own everything in their respective homes, incase anything got lost along the way. I’ve had some issues moving once before and losing a few small house items, so I took care this time around. I’m hoping the move goes smooth. I did join a nice Labs raid, it went well, no wipes.

I also worked a bit on the new library and lore section of the site. It’s something I’ve had in the past, typed out the tomes collected in my library by hand for others to read, also describing where the book came from. Blame my obsession with house items. So once the raids were done, and my banks cleaned, I worked on book quests.

There are three type of book quests really. There are ones that are sold by merchants. The Sage located in the mage towers for Qeynos and Freeport, then there are also mob dropped ones. These ones are the most annoying for me, as I’ve pretty much out-leveled any place that has these drop. Examples would be Obelisk of Lost Souls, where there are at least 7 mob-dropped-only book quests, I tried farming as many as I could with the defiler, she has six on the go now I believe. There are also collection books, where you can find the pages scattered across Norrath, they can drop from mobs as body drops or they can be found on the ground as pages fluttering in the wind, marked by a shiny explanation mark. These ones are just as annoying, as you’ve no idea where to search for the specific pages that you need. My favorite by far are the ones sold by the sages. They’re interesting stories and send you all over the place. I wish that each side could complete the tomes, but since the sage in Freeport won’t talk to my Qeynosians and vice versa, I’ve betrayed characters just so that they could obtain books on both sides.

There are a LOT of book quests out there. I am missing so many of them, it’s sort of an inspiration for me to try to gather more, keeps me motivated. On the down side, I did not play the defiler at all this weekend (though maybe that is a blessing?) and saved up her vitality. I logged her in to make a set of tailored gear for a stranger (who was new to the server, I also gave them a plat to play around with) and that was about it. I need to do more farming for her at some point or another as she’s low on T5 stuff.

Other then that, things are quiet. Look for an rp-related post later in the day hopefully!

** Edit ** News about the transfers here! Looking forward to this.

Hmmm. This looks new. Thexian Gatecallers and a whole lot of.. something.. going on

Yesterday I took my (now) 56 defiler, and decided I’d start claymore. The first few quests were really easy. I managed to get to the SoS ones, and realized I don’t have the druzaic language quest completed. In fact, I have no language quests completed, nor any Lore and Legend quests done. I need druzaic to speak with the ghost in Sanctum of the Scaleborn, so I decided early this morning that I’d head out and start working on that. It’s a very simple quest, run around to four shrines which can be in one of two locations, and click it. While searching for the first shrine in Nektulos Forest.. I stumbled into something.

Wow. What IS that? Surrounding it are Thexian Gatecallers, busy at work. It’s located in the North East portion of the zone, close to where you pick up the Dragoon heritage quest. Anyone have any ideas what’s incoming? I also noticed another strange occurrence that I’d yet to see before, or perhaps I’ve just never noticed it. In Antonica at the spires that take you to the KoS zone, there is a scroll on the ground, next to one of the spires that reaches for the sky. A brown scroll, that pulses with mist. You can’t interact with it, but it looked new to me none the less.

Is Neriak on it’s way back to being rebuilt? What are those Thexians up to? I tried to prod Silverstep for information (my dark elf fury) but she was reluctant to say anything. Personally, I don’t think she knew what to make of it.

I’m glad to be almost out of the dreaded T6 with the defiler. Though it’s going slow and even slower with no vitality. Using one of her 54% exp potions yesterday for an hour only netted me 30% experience over all. I figure I’ll just keep grinding and questing, it seems to get more experience over all.

Misako grinding the level away in Pillars of Flame, her home for a few more levels

Level 55 and counting. I’m going to use a leveling potion tonight in the hopes that I can get to 56.. and then over the next few days, I’m hoping to be out of the dreaded T6 and into T7 with the defiler. I’ve been doing a few odd quests here and there, yesterday Silent City access was completed, and today since Pillars of Flame was relatively bot-free, decided to do some of the easy quests in there. It worked out fairly well. A lot of the ease of leveling has to do not only with the 70 shadowknight I use to mentor (though now my defiler can group up with 70’s and get quest credit finally! That’s a huge bonus) but also to do with the 56 ranger who’s been coming with me on all my adventures. It’s great company and the dps is a blessing.

Last night I also took the defiler through Poets Palace. Things there are level 65, which means they’re red to her, but she got the discovery and the ap points for the named none the less. The zone is fairly easy for any level 70. One down side is that she can’t quite cure the dots that mobs use, nor can she cure the awful traps that get set off from treasure chests, but she does have her 55 rare that she can use every 2 minutes and removes impairments up to level 74. Better then nothing I suppose! I haven’t progressed the Godking quest any further yet, nor have I progressed Claymore, but those are on my “to do” list. I imagine I’ll start more once I’ve hit 60.

I also did a quick nest run, which was a lot of fun. I took the illusionist, no healer. A master dropped and ended up getting transmuted, it was only selling for 2p on the broker, and that’s pretty much just change now. I love what Gaff has been doing lately with adding old screen shots and having people guess where they’re from. There is also a WoW site that does that called AFKGamer, so I think I’m going to have to swipe the idea, once a week. I’ll post a screen shot to some location or an item some place (hopefully unique.. I can’t promise though!) and see if people can guess where it is.

I found this post interesting, where Ogrebear talks about their dislike of people solo’ing poets. I made a reply to it, because I didn’t agree. There are plenty of people out there who can solo things that I can not do. Be it due to my gear (or lack there of) or some other factor. I don’t expect people to do things exactly like one another. It is a combination of skill and other randomness. I don’t hold it against those people either. It would be almost as if I complained about a level 70 crafter making more money from their crafting profession then I did at mine. At least that’s what I relate it to.

Stargrace, sporting her new warg, which I’ve named Spit. For obvious reasons.

The new update went in yesterday with very little issues at all. I headed to Loping Plains (along with the majority of the server) and did the quests for the new wargs. Easy, simple, fast quests that paid some coin and a lot of ap experience. I did the quest on all three level 70’s, and I’ll head there and do it with the rest once they hit 55 (which is the lowest level you can be to get the quest). All you do is run around close to Somborn and charm three types of warg, you can complete it in less then five minutes. The wargs cost 5p each, and are 45% speed. So they’re slighty faster then the free carpet you can quest for, but slower then the guild level 60 mounts (which also cost status, and 14p each). There was a note on the forums stating these will not be the last wargs you see, nor the fastest. More will come.

They’re… interesting. The run graphic seems to be a bit off for my liking. They also drool. A lot. I do like the jump graphic. I decided to trade in my two 50% mounts and purchase this new warg, saving myself 5p on the return of my old mount, as well as getting the status back. Not that I need status for anything, but it’s always nice to have a little extra coin in my pocket.

Misako got level 54… I quested a little, and decided to do Hidden Cache with a friend. She also almost hit 52 ap, I’m heading down the int line for some nice debuffs.

With the new update yesterday was also a better chance for useful items to drop on your instance runs. Some people were complaining, because it does not seem to be 100% chance for a useful item to drop. More like 90% chance. I did Obelisk of Blight, where shadowknight boots dropped (and the tank was a shadowknight from guild who could use them, thankfully) and I also did Valdoons, where ranger forearms dropped, and low and behold, we had a ranger in the group who could use them. I had Dasie tag along on all these runs in the hopes that a piece of templar gear would drop… of course it didn’t happen that way but oh well I’ll just have to keep trying. I’m looking forward to being able to bring the defiler on these adventures.

Misako, sporting her new cobalt armor and a matching spear and buckler set

I slacked with the defiler, I admit. I leveled her to 52 wearing level 20 gear. I did upgrade her spells and she has adept1 of everything, made adept3 of everything important (which so far has been nothing except her 52 ancient teaching’s spell). I used her as a heal / buff bot and some dps with her doggy, but she rarely quested or did anything more. I didn’t join groups outside of my guild specifically because there’s no way she’d have the capabilities to keep up a “regular” player in her icky gear. So when she hit 52, I decided to go all out, and get her geared up incase opportunity ever arose that I actually wanted to, you know, PLAY her.

So I splurged, and spent about 11p. It was well worth it though. I bought 7 cobalt clusters and had a friend make me a full set of brigandine armor (which has +12 stam / int / wis) leaving them with a 2p tip for their prompt service. Then I bought 8 pearls, and made myself earrings, bracelets, rings, a necklace, made myself a belt with a scaled pelt, as well as a tome for ranged. Bought a cobalt spear for 1p50g since I don’t know any weaponsmiths, and made myself an imbued ironwood buckler with one I had sitting in the bank. Also bought her some level 50 food and drink, even though I have a provisioner, I had no supplies and wasn’t really in the mood to craft. Besides, what’s the point of even having money in game if I never spend it. My three level 70’s don’t need any masters any more, and their gear is no-trade stuff from raids and instances. There’s nothing to shop for.

I spent the day working quests in sinking sands and wondering why I had put off questing with her for so long. Probably because boxing two characters through quests is not actually something I enjoy. Especially because I box on one computer with one monitor. So I have to constantly toggle back and forth between characters while questing, checking for updates and seeing which part I’m on next and what I need, etc. I use the defiler screen far less, since I pay the most attention to the tank character. I managed to get almost 51 ap, and she’s 66% into her level from those solo sinking sands chains of quests. I also intend on getting her started on her godking weapon (which really is still the best weapon non-raid obtained for a healer) and I traveled to West Freeport and picked up the starter to Claymore which is how I figure I’ll grind her through the 60’s. She still needs to do the druzaic language quest, as well as pick up to speak as a dragon, but those can wait. I’m also looking forward to hitting 55, means she can group with level 70’s and get quest credit, even if the mobs are grey’d out, that doesn’t bother me so much. She’ll also get ap for the names killed.

Hoping to take her through Hidden Cache today in Sinking Sands. I did the Tomb of Dust in the Clefs of Rujark yesterday, three named and a bunch of discovery, nothing interesting dropped but that’s fine. Still eager to get her out of the 50’s and into the 60’s! When I was solo’ing the quests yesterday I realized just how much fun the defiler really is. Granted, I say that about every single one of my characters, I enjoy playing them so much.

*** Highlights ***

A new mount is now available. Tame your own fearsome Warg! Talk to Heinrich in the Loping plains to get more details. You can now share many of the quests in your quest journal with others. Even if you’ve completed them already!

*** Gameplay ***

EoF Fabled and Legendary class armor distribution will now consider the makeup of those who participate in the encounter.

Players who were originally citizens of Kelethin but then switched citizenship should now be allowed to return.

Tired of that ugly mummy or chubby ogre following you everywhere? Then try /pet hide.

Some NPCs that both offer and update quests for a player should now have the book icon above their head instead of the feather.

Further enhancements have been made for server performance.

*** Items ***

Orclord Ringmail armor has been renamed Orclord Stalking. All pieces are now properly flagged as leather and now have a more appropriate appearance. (No stats or class requirements have been changed.)

The Ribcage Scythe will now deal piercing damage and has had it’s +slashing mod replaced with +piercing.

Deepforest Fistwraps can now be equipped by Bruisers and Monks.

Plasma Boost and Plasma Amplification are now correctly modifying the amount of damage specified in the spell description.

The Crown of Enlightenment’s trigger proc now works correctly.

Plasma Boost (and similar effects) will no longer stop the triggered effect from the Robe of Alkabor from functioning.

*** Quests ***

All players above the level 20 can now assist Grot Leadarm in the quest, "Ill Communication" in the Butcherblock Mountains.

Significantly reduced the number of Enchanted Adamantine Ore and Enchanted Azurite Capillaries that Toranim Skyblade and Gogas Afadin want for the Ghoulbane Empowered subquests.

In Greater Faydark, The limecap mushrooms can now be harvested from a normal distance for the quest "Limecap Mushrooms".

Temporary items given when you start a quest will now be stamped with the name of the Quest.

Citizens of Kelethin can now do the Ties That Bind in Antonica.

Quest Sharing: - You can now share Quests (both incomplete and complete) with your groupmates using the new button in your Quest Journal!  When sharing a Quest, the receiver will start at the beginning of the Quest. You must have completed all the prerequisites in order to receive a shared Quest. If you haven’t, a message will tell you what you need to do. Certain types of Quests cannot be shared: Hallmark, Heritage, Signature and Betrayal Quests, plus the first Quest in each Deity line. Receivers will be granted any items that the original Quest NPC gives at the start of the Quest.

*** PVP ***

Citizens of Freeport, Kelethin and Qeynos who die in Azhar’s Penitence will now have respawn options in the Sinking Sands.

Fixed an issue where playing in third person combat might stop another player from using positional attacks on them.

You will now get a message to the general combat channel about why you have entered into combat.

*** Tradeskills ***

Fixed an error causing components to disappear if a player goes LD while doing commission work.

 *** Zones ***

The Estate of Unrest: Garanel’s Shade will no longer break the counter with /yell. Enchanted Lands: Pages missing from the Enchanted Lands book collection quests are once again dropping.

*** Broker ***

Containers can be flagged as ‘Contents not for sale’. This will hide the contents of the bag from any vender’s sell window.

Searching the broker is now more intuitive:

Each word you search for can appear in the item name in any order.

 Use a dash (-) before a word to indicate that the word should not appear in the item name.

*** UI ***

The Options window now has buttons for "Save Custom" and "Load Custom." You can use these new features to create, save, and load options profiles and switch between them on the fly.

Bags should no longer resize when you log in, from their previous size.

Fixed a number of cases where spells would give out unnecessary error messages.

Changing a container’s label is now done from the Bag Options window.

You can now select the primary spell for a macro that contains multiple spell steps. The icon tinting, reuse timer and tooltip are displayed for the primary spell.

Just could not pass up posting this picture here.. this, is Princess, my cat. She’s got an obsession with bags of baby carrots apparently, which is what she’s curled up on. Her name suits her very well, she owns the house, I won’t lie.

A break down of my defiler’s ap’s thus far

Things are going to be shaking up in EQII very soon (from the 25th and onwards) and I have to say I am very excited about the changes. Not only is there a new update going in with some very good changes that I am looking forward to, but as of the 30th, the PvP servers are merging (which may be an indication of lower populations, but lets just leave that topic for now) and also free PvE server transfers, and not only free server transfers but free account transfers. This means, well first of all, that I just spent money moving my characters to the new account when I could have held off had I known about this, but anyhow. It means that I can move around some more characters between accounts if I want. Why would I want to do this? Well, I wanted an order to my two accounts. I had two set ups so to speak. Either have all my healers on one account and all my dps / utility on another (Tank? What’s that again?) or the method that I was aiming for (which I’m unsure of) is to have at least one of each arch type on the accounts. So that would mean a healer / dps / utility on one account, and the same on the other.

The way my accounts are set up now is Account #1: Templar, Fury, Conjuror, Swashbuckler, Coercer. Account #2: Illusionist, Dirge, Defiler, Assassin, Berserker.

I’d like to move my Defiler over with the templar and fury. Mainly because I really like playing my illusionist, and the dps classes on the first account are not very high level. Where as the templar fury and illusionist are 70, the conjuror, dirge, defiler, and assassin are 50’s. I wanted to move the templar back over to the second account, so that there was a healer there, move the dirge to the first account so there was power regen there that I could play with the templar if I wanted. . . . Or is that all just confusing and makes no sense? Argh decisions decisions.

So I was having a set of cobalt armor made for my defiler today, being annoyed at the level 20 gear she’s been sporting for quite some time now. There were no messages about servers coming down — though later I did find this small post saying the servers would be coming down for two hours it sure would have been nice to have had some in game warnings. I just hope my cobalt pieces are all alright and my crafter wasn’t mid-combine. Hopefully I’ll see the results of that later today. I also went out and bought a handful of pearls so that I could make some mastercrafted jewelry for her. The level 20 stuff really was putting a damper on things. I splurged and bought a cobalt spear as well, they’re dang expensive at 1p50g. I dropped about 15p total for various things from 7 pieces of cobalt + crafters tip (they were a friend of mine, so I actually paid them 2p to make the armor for me) also bought 8 rough pearls (which are going for 70g-1p each on Lucan) and also bought that spear. Thankfully the buckler I can make myself with my woodworker, so that saved me a little bit at least. I’m going to work on making some adornments next, get some stamina so that my soul ward goes off for more, and some + to heals which is always fun.

I’m still looking for new places to level, the clefs are nice but I’m going to get bored there fast. I’m thinking I should work the Godking chain of quests for something to do, but I’m dreading it, and my chances of ever finding a Godking raid are probably slim to none. I know at the later 50’s I can start working on Cyclops, but until then every percent seems to drag.

Misako and Silverstep battling their way through the mines

The defiler hit level 52, and 42 aa points. At this rate she’s going to pass my 70 templar in points very soon (templar is sitting at 55 I think). If I haven’t mentioned it yet (and I have, a few times) I really really dislike the level grind from 50-59. I’m not sure why, it just seems to take forever. They are the levels that I’ll end up using my experience potions for and try to get some collection quests done for experience. Discovery as well I try to hit as much as possible in the 50’s just because I absolutely hate it. I wish I knew why it felt slower. I’m sure it’s not in truth. I spent the morning with a friend in Clefs of Rujark which will probably be my home for a little bit to come. The defiler is still wearing level 20 gear. Something I wanted to fix at level 52. I have noticed that gear is very expensive though so I’m contemplating waiting until she can quest for some gear, or get some from drops. I’m not sure. I have 6 cobalt sitting in my bank, and I could have armor made from it but then there’s the fee for person making it and then actually having to FIND someone who can make it which is typically a bigger challenge.

I also wanted to start the peacock line of quests. Without gear, there’s no point. Then I also have to make the rare spells and jewelery that the defiler would need, and I’ve been eyeballing some new adornments as well. All in all working up another level 70 is an expensive prospect. At least on Lucan, not sure if every server is the same thing.

While wandering through Maj’Dul for discovery experience, Misako ran smack into this gorgeous creature, Siyamak - level 65×4

I had no idea what I felt like doing last night, but knew plenty of things that I didn’t feel like doing. A lot of my friends online were doing their weekend raid thing (sighs, still going through my raid withdrawl!) and I found myself with a few hours to fill and nothing to fill it with. Eyeballing my defiler, who was 4% into her level with very little vitality left, I decided I would try to run around the DoF zones and see if I could not get enough discovery from places to ding. I didn’t actually think I’d manage a full level worth of discovery to hit level 50, but I was wrong.

I grabbed some invis totems (curtsey of my woodworker) and headed to sinking sands. She’d never even step foot into any of the DoF content before, having spent the past week grinding her contently in Obelisk of Lost Souls (which she still has some book quests for to complete some time). Thankfully, almost nothing saw through her invis. It was a bit of a slow run, since you get no movement enchantments as you’re running around stealthed, but it was a lot of fun none the less. Doing that one zone netted her to 37% through her level and I’d yet to touch a mob. I headed to clefs of rujark, a favorite zone of mine for the lower 50’s (until it was swarmed by bots, go figure) and netted a little more. Headed to living tombs, and noticed I was approaching 70% experience. I’d also gotten myself two ap’s from all of the discovery, sitting myself at 41 which I just find amusing. My first character in the game (Dasie, my templar) only has 55 ap, and she’s done so much more then Misako who’s barely even lifted a finger to quest in her short life. After Living Tombs I headed to Maj’Dul and then to finish off the level in Pillars of Flame, part way through my discovery adventure hit 50.

Now the real fun starts. I absolutely hate the grind from 50-59. It seems to take forever, the slowest of all the tiers and I’m not even really sure why. Does anyone else seem to have this issue?

As I was making my way through Maj’Dul, I came across the pretty in the screen shot above, Siyamak. They’re used in the quest “Capturing Night and Day” (that one being the silver dragon of course) and are spawned in the area with the beggars by using a silver dragon scale that you can get as a very rare drop from the Keeper in Poets Palace. There’s also a gold version of this beauty (also used in the quest) they’re epicx4’s and level 65. It’s so rare to see anyone doing the chain of quests these days though. No one happened to be around when I walked right into this beat, so I assume someone spawned them and then either decided they couldn’t handle it alone, or a raid may have come in and wiped or something. Either way, it was a very pretty screen shot to take, and I’m glad my defiler hit level 50. I figure I’ll get her two more levels, sitting her at 52, and then upgrade her gear. Since I’ve been playing her with a level 70 mentored… she has level 20 gear. Thankfully I don’t typically group up with her, she’s just used for heals and debuffs. I’d be embarrassed trying to keep a group up with the gear she has on currently.