Well, Cuppy asked for us to post pictures of our blogging areas, so this is mine. The coffee tins on the far right are actually filled with coins, I don’t have some obsession with nabob coffee, though maybe it’s more interesting if I do. On the top of my computer are some photographs, the one with the heart is of Shadowgeist (my fiance) and to the left of that a giant coin and some pictures of my friends kids. There’s a teddy bear my mom gave me up there too. Of course my beautiful monitor, G15 keyboard, mouse, and headset sitting on the keyboard tray. Lots of books scattered around and note pads since I spend a majority of my time writing. The cat normally hogs the whole left side panel there, but I managed to take the picture before she snuck her way on. My desk top is a screen shot that I took in game, nothing impressive.

Qutey Patootie - a monk to be reckoned with

Yesterday I was undecided as to what to do. That’s one of the bad things about having so many alts, is there’s plenty that you could work on, but it’s hard to decide what you actually want to work on. I had heard about the Sword of Destiny line ending shortly, and I have yet to complete it on any on of my characters (the chapters that are out now) so I figured perhaps I’d work on that. I also wanted to get some Tunarian Wolvesbane and donate it to the guild, for when they eventually attempt Mayong in Mistmoore Inner Sanctum. I wanted to work on getting Dasie to 100aa, since she’s behind and could use them, and I also wanted to work on tome quests with <insert every character I have who has them here>.

Instead, I took a look at my ranger, who was 30% into level 49, and decided to level her to 50 the best way that I knew how for that level. Which of course is through discovery experience. You can get an entire level from 49-50 just through discovery in Sinking Sands, Clefs of Rujark, and Pillars of Flame. There is just that much discovery between the three zones. I also managed to get the Clefs lift access done at the same time, and killed off a few named that were up for aa. I don’t typically get a chance to play my ranger, or any of my “pure” dps classes in fact, because the utility or healer classes are needed far more often, but I like to think that I’m slowly learning how to play them. I pride myself on knowing how to actually play all of my classes. There is a lot of fantastic players out there who know their classes far better then I do and can pull off some amazing stuff with them as such, but I still like to think that I’m an ok player.

Anyhow, I ran her around, and got her level, and her level 50 skills, which I’ll of course need to upgrade. I also need to start working on her alchemy again a little bit. I love not having to purchase all my poisons and potions. She can’t make the T6 ones to use yet though until she levels a bit more. Poisons are a scouts bread and butter. Well, aside from bards at least who don’t get to use poisons. I also got my baby monk to level 22, which was just high enough to use the new crafted gear I made her. I’ve turned off her combat experience again and will continue to level her by doing quests. It’s a wonderful character to escape to and I am really enjoying being able to feign death if a fight gets too difficult. Of course it always seems to fail at just the right time when you have 100 mobs beating away on you, but it’s still fun none the less.

Finally, Dasie managed to get her set piece forearms

Yesterday was quiet, I had a BBQ to go to (oh my goodness crab cakes and steak and potatoes… it was so good) and then once I got home did a fast Valdoon run with Shadowgeist (I played Dasie and Stargrace). I’d been attempting to get the templar/inquisitor forearms for quite some time with no luck. Usually the shadowknight ones dropped. I was also hoping to get her the bloodlust earring, but that one decided to be a little more stubborn. On the plus side that also drops from the first named, so I can just kill that and avoid the rest of the zone now that I’ve gotten the forearms. I did a Chamber of Immortality run for the two masters that are guarantee drops with Ishbel, and did it again this morning. I have her parked outside of the zone so that’s pretty much all I do with her lately. Having so many alts is an expensive hobby, I figure if I farm that zone everyday that’s still 14 masters a week (minus whatever else I typically farm) and that’ll help when it comes time to gearing up my alts.

Last night I couldn’t sleep, so I dusted Yamini off and headed to the Obelisk of Lost Souls. Spent some time farming in there (while boxing, of course) and hit level 49 with her. I’m still looking to get both her and Goudia to 52 so that they can wear all that cobalt gear I bought a while back. Tonight is another off night, so no raids at least. Tomorrow is labs and Chel’Drak. I’m sure both will go very well.

A small pet peeve I have, is when people keep asking / bothering me for the items I loot. Now, that sort of comes off wrong. I’m not a greedy person and I don’t have any issues helping my friends or giving stuff away, but I hate it when almost complete strangers ask me for that sort of stuff. A few have said ‘well I don’t get the luxury of boxing’ or ‘I don’t play as much as you do’. But I still put forth time and effort to accomplish anything that I have in game. Those should not be ‘excuses’ to hit me up for items or money or power leveling. Is it just me? I mean, a guild group is different. I’ve been helping to level a few guildies in the evenings and I decline on everything that drops unless it may be a tradeskill item. There’s simply no need for me to roll on that stuff since I have my own characters and because I can indeed just box to get the items I need. I suppose maybe I am not the nicest person, but I help in my own way. If someone needs help with something I typically am available to help. If they have a question about the game, I’m more then willing to aid there as well. I just don’t like passing out extraordinary amounts of material things. Though I did give a guild necromancer a level 70 master yesterday since I just had it sitting around.

A friend of mine who plays on Najena was telling me how she was finishing off her collection tome quests, and I decided that it may be a good idea for Stargrace to complete some of those as well. I’d been harvesting pages forever it seemed, and had only a few needed for each collection, most of the time only one was needed. So I looked up the quests and found out that for 8 of them, the pages I needed were actually clickies located in the Feerrott. So off I went, and completed *8* book quests! I was ecstatic. That was 8 more house items to add to the library. I also managed to finish four more L&L’s and added the weapons to the growing collection on Stargrace’ wall.

Other then that, things are quiet, and I can’t say I mind at all. I will probably be heading to Niagara Falls later next week so there may be a lack of posts, but it’s still in the works, so we’ll see how it goes!

*** As a side note *** This is my 300th EQII related post… wow, hard to believe I’ve hit that number already! Thank you so much everyone for the support and comments and all the rest that help make this blog possible. I really enjoy having this little niche in the MMO world.

The AA information on the left hand side is for Dasie, who’s sitting at 66 right now, and on the right, Stargrace who is at 100. I just wanted to see where the majority of their points came from. Dasie hit 50 before any aa were in game, so she never got an opportunity to do any of the lower level stuff for it. Stargrace on the other hand, was created when DoF and KoS were both already out. Dasie is the lowest of my characters as far as aa’s are concerned, I’ve rarely ever gotten a chance to play her, she’s never been needed. It gives me a goal at least though and something to do. Dasie is also a 70 jeweler, which is always nice. I’m going to make her a tinkerer since Stargrace already is one, who wouldn’t want two.

The guild leader left for a short vacation on Thursday after raids, Friday was a tentative raid to work on the arcanists signets quest line from Loping Plains. You know the set, that gives a VERY nice proc against vampires. I had horrible thunderstorms, so I actually had to leave part way through for a brief period, and didn’t want people to have to wait on me, so I was left behind. Understandable though, I’ll complete it another time. It’s really a very great proc to have on raids. It was a small group but we did manage to get our off tank the cloak that proc’s hate. Not that he needs much more hate, he’s a great off tank.

Saturday (again with no guild leader nor his wife which means no MT and no MT defiler.. and our MT templar is also on vacation..) we were scheduled to do LoA but were cautious about it, missing so many people. I was asked to play my inquisitor in the main tank group because the templar who typically raids with us is on vacation. Now. Dasie does not have masters of her heals, and she’s slightly under-geared, but that is only a portion of how well a player does. I parsed very well on the heals for the night, and aside from some difficulty from the eyeball in the zone who spawns tatter tots (we wiped x2 and got him on the 3rd) the zone was cake. Impressive since we had three groups and so many missing. I had a blast playing Dasie. I’m really hoping that I get to keep her as my main, I have to talk to the guild leader when they get back and see how viable that would be. I know everyone loves having a constant illusionist (or two, since we have two) around, but I am a healer at heart and I hope I proved that with my game play the past little while.

Tonight I’ve got a BBQ to head to so not much time for playing, an off night since it’s Sunday. Monday is an off night as well, though a courts run was planned too few people signed up. Tuesday I believe we’re doing labs and Chel’Drak again, but I could be wrong. We’ll see how it goes. In game it’s your typical Sunday, people complaining on various channels and all the rest. The Festival of Unity ended yesterday with a parade, but I didn’t get to go to it because of raids. I know there’s a balance between role play and raiding out there, but it sucks that I couldn’t go to the event. One of the main reasons why I enjoy the 3 raids a week that we host right now as opposed to joining the other guilds who were interested in me who all raid 7 days a week. Just because I’m on frequently doesn’t mean I want to spend all of it raiding.

Dasie, playing the part of an inquisitor, all done up as a vampire

I used to be able to say that there was one character I had never betrayed, my very first character on EQII in fact, my templar. However, that’s changed, not a bad thing! I decided I wanted to try an inquisitor for a few reasons. Number one, I really wasn’t playing the templar at all, she’s not needed for raids, and there are plenty around. Not that there aren’t also a lot of inquisitors in around too, but the guild could use an inquisitor some times. I honestly miss playing a healer, I played one pretty much all of my time in EQII until I decided to switch to illusionist for a bit, it’s been about 5 months now since I’ve been playing her.

The betrayal was fast, I had help from Dalthar, a brigand in guild. He snuck into the instance with me and would sneak around completing the quest while Dasie sat around, then I zoned her out, died to an epic, rinse repeat to finish the simple faction quests. She got her +10k with the city of Freeport within the hour, tamed a dog, killed a woman, and ta da. Dasie is a new inquisitor. I had adept3’s and masters set aside for her, so she was all set to go. Then came raid time. I typically play Stargrace on raids, the guild has plenty of healers. Well. Usually. Last night we had a shortage, and I was asked if I’d mind boxing both my healer and my illusionist on the raid. I don’t mind boxing, but boxing on a raid… is hard. Especially if you’re playing a healer — not to mention it was my first day playing an inquisitor.

I was a little leery at the end since we all have to run into Venekors room at the same time, and avoid adds and get back up against a wall. I had to do it with both girls fairly fast or risk wiping the raid, and I did not want to do that. I apologized ahead of time incase I caused a wipe, and uh, well my girl got stuck on the door, and of course, we wiped. Another raider went LD during the run anyhow, so it wasn’t completely my fault, but it was none the less. I felt horrible. So that was the only death of the evening at least. We went at it again, this time I made sure both characters were clear through the doors, backed up against a wall, all that good raid stuff that I’ve been doing for some time now. Kill was flawless, even with the lack of regular players.

Hopefully I’ll be playing the inquisitor more frequently, I had a blast. Granted, I am still learning her spells, and she’s not at 100aa yet, but hey, work in progress. I figure if I don’t like it I will just betray her back to templar in November when the level cap goes up. Do I regret giving up her master spells? She had all of them except one level 70 group reactive, including her T6 rare holy redoubt (a 962hp buff). Not really. I heal fairly well (not to brag, that’s not my point here) with or without the masters. She could *really* use some upgrades, but what’s the point if I’m not going to be playing her seriously. She could also use claymore. Ugh. I’m dreading doing that on a .. 4th… character… *sighs* We’ll see how it goes. Sorry my thoughts are all over today, weather has me a bit scatter brained. Didn’t see Kilanna this morning, hope she had a pleasant night though!

Some days, I have a huge dislike for people…

So, people who don’t know me very well may think that I am some quiet shy person who never speaks up about anything, and actually the opposite is true. I can be quite temperamental and I speak my mind. Yesterday a guild mate needed some quest updates in Nektulos Forest. I mentored my 70 illusi down to 25, and said I would help out. As they were returning from a quest turn in, one of the mobs they needed was up. They were still some time away, so I mez’d the mob, and cleared the camp for them.

Along comes Ikun, a necromancer. He sees me there with the mob mez’d. He breaks it the first time, and I say in says, if he could not do that I would appreciate it, thinking it was a mistake. Then he breaks it again. And again. And again. I’m mentored to level 25, so the mob is hurting me each time he breaks it. I send a tell, saying I’m just waiting for a guild mate to show up, if he could stop breaking my mez, I’d appreciate it. I get down to about 10% health, and as you can see I also screamed at the guild mate to type /lock so that my mez could not be broken. Problem is (only the guild leader can /lock an encounter when you are engaged, at least in this group set up) the group leader also has to be able to have the actual mob targeted in order to lock an encounter. So I sighed and just let my nukes go and killed it before the group mate reached me, and before I ended up dying.

30 minutes later, I get a tell from Ikun, and it says “why are you harassing my kid”. . . . .

Pardon me? Harassing their kid? I barely said two peeps except to tell them not to break my mez, that I was waiting on a group mate. I didn’t swear (I rarely do) and I didn’t rant at them once I had no choice but to kill the mob. So I patiently explained to this “parent” that I had not harassed anyone, that I had logs and screen shots if they required further proof, and explained that if their kid could not read, or understand that you don’t go around wacking other people’s encounters in this game, that perhaps they should not be playing.

Well, after about 2 minutes into this conversation I realized that I was not talking to any sort of “parent” at all, and it was more then likely some snot nosed kid who decided they’d try to turn the tables on me. How did I come to this conclusion? They wrote very poorly, and you could just tell by the demeanor of their answers. I’m not stupid. I hate people who lie to me. Especially when I had done nothing wrong. They demanded to know why a level 70 was in nektulos forest. I was still mentored to level 25, and stated as much. I also explained I was there helping a guild mate. I didn’t even have to explain, there’s plenty of reasons why a level 70 is in a lower level zone. It rubbed me completely the wrong way, and I told them that I thought they were being exceptionally rude, and I asked for the name of their guild leader. They said welcome to ignore, and that was the end of the conversation.

I rarely have bad encounters with players in EQII. It’s probably one of the reasons I tend to keep to myself though and solo / do my own thing. I realize there’s no such thing as camps as acknowledged by SoE, and that it’s perfectly alright to break someone else’ mez in game while they are in an encounter. However, there are still game ethics, and player maturity, and all that good stuff. Sadly enough, some days it just lacks.

Chel’Drak, dead for the first time by the Inquisition

Last night was raid night, and it started with a very very fast run through labs. I did not find it enjoyable at all, I hate rushing through zones, easy or not. It was “get going faster faster” the entire time. We had one wipe to Vyemm who refused to be mem-wiped, and then headed off to make our first attempts at Chel’Drak. The inquisition had attempted him a time or two before I do believe, but they were not exactly sure what to expect this time. A majority of them had never been here. The raid was explained, macro’s made. Positions assigned. The first pull went beautifully. Well, positioning, not so much of a pull seeing as you have to charge into his room. Everyone had their parts down great. We had some bad luck, and three warrior adds spawned in a row. Anyone who’s done Chel’Drak before knows that it’s not the giant ancient dragon who kills you, but the class adds. Warriors taunt the entire raid onto different targets, which means healers can only use group heals to keep their tanks up. It’s not a pretty sight.

So we ate the wipe, and set up again. We came prepared, with repair kits. A whole lot of them in fact. Little did we know they would not be used at all this night. We charged in again.. and the adds came.. and went.. AoE’s were called. Encounters downed.. He hit 30% before we knew it.. 10.. 5.. 1%.. we burned like we’ve never burned before, and down he went. On the second pull. A huge congratulations to the guild as a whole for accomplishing this encounter on their second attempt. It gave people the motivational boost that they needed I think in order to do better at the EoF raids. Pride in themselves as players. Everyone brought their “A” game.

Now, I know guilds have had this specific encounter down to farm status for months now. Including my previous guild back in January, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how many guilds have done it before you or how many guilds are to come after you, what matters is that there was a goal and through team work and a lot of hard work and patience, it was something everyone achieved together. I just wish more had been on the quest for the zone that gave them the pretty ring with 5% off their spell cast timers. Oh well! Now that we all know we can do it, hopefully future attempts will go just as smooth.

Since it was a raid night I didn’t get to attend any of the festivities going on in Antonica, but I did keep an ear out for the Feyiron Chef contest, it sounded like a lot of fun. Tonight there is more entertainment and I should be heading down that way unless something else comes up, we’ll see how it goes. Congratulations again The Inquisition on Antonia Bayle, a job well done.

The GM’s have been very nice in aiding with the festival, adding tents to the celebration areas in Antonica

Last night I decided to take a break completely from things. I was going to work on L&L for Stargrace, and decided not to. I declined power leveling and guildies. I decided to say no to crafting. So what did I do? Well, a few guilds on Antonia Bayle have been hosting the Festival of Unity. It is a week long event located mostly in Antonica so that people from various factions can attend and not worry about the guards. There are games, contests, prizes to be won. It was one of the best nights I’ve ever had in EverQuestII. I’ll be posting my role play version of this event a little later today, but in the mean time here’s an overview.

At about 8:15pm EST, an auction began in Windstalker village. Nice of the GM’s to erect a stage and some tents for the festivities.

The crowd was huge, there were people of all factions, races, and guilds gathered together. The bidding began at 10g and went steadily up from there. The funds went half to the festival community to help pay for things like food and drink and costumes, and the other half went to the people auctioned. It was all in good fun, and it seemed that most people enjoyed themselves. It may sound a little weird, auctioning someone off in an MMO, but they were “dates” for the night, for the tavern event that was to follow the auction. Everyone volunteered themselves, no one was forced. Some people went for as high as 10p. Misako herself tried to make a few bids, but it was a little to steep for her pockets.

Afterwards the Fellowship of the Dragon hosted a fishing competition on the docks in Windstalker village. The winner was Shirrar, who got some nice prizes. Other prizes were donated to the second and third place winners. I had a lot of fun playing a reporter, and wandering around the event in general. There were peddlers selling their wares, froglok totems made from by real frogloks, dresses in case you had nothing to wear to the event, food and drink abound. There was also fortunes told, by Drakael - or rather, futures told. Misako got in on that as well, as there was a huge line up. The event was quite popular. The auction itself went on for nearly three hours, while people wandered around the event. After the auction and while the fishing competition was finishing up, Annwen gathered a crowd beneath a huge old tree to talk about some old Norrathian stories, her tale of the night was about Mujaki the Devourer - I couldn’t listen to the entire story though as it was Misako’s turn to have her future told.

There were drinking competitions hosted along with the stories, and at midnight EST there were card games. My eyeballs were threatening to close by 11:30 though, so I had to call it an early night. I really had a great time. If you’re looking for more information on the festival, you can find it here there are events like lemming cliff diving, there were jousting tournaments, and there’s so much more. There is an event schedule as well. There is also another post with some screen shots of the event here in the offical AB forums. If you’re on the AB server, I suggest you check it out and embrace what a wonderful server you’re apart of, and even if you’re not from AB I’d suggest rolling an alt just to see the events.

Dasie in Unrest, one of my smoothest runs ever, no wipes, and no deaths for her at least (or the tank)

No raids on Mondays, so it was a nice casual day again. Well, it was supposed to be at least. I’m slightly frustrated in game, a combination of real life and in game things creating stupid moods that I’m sure will go away before too long. In game, I’m annoyed by little stuff. I think I am just not used to being in a guild again, and it will be a period of adjustment. The people are wonderful, I have no real issues there. I’m trying to be as friendly as I can back, and still do what I like to do in game, which is typically solo. I pretty much do what I want when I want, with the exception of raids. One thing I wish more people did was dedicate a little more time to “mains” instead of alts. Everyone is busy working up alts currently, and I understand the need for them and the benifits that come with being able to swap them in and out at raids, but what about all of the important quests that a main has typically done as opposed to an alt.

Brock’s thermal shocker is actually one of these really important quests especially if you’re doing EoF raiding. Why? Because the thermal shocker is the exact distance you need to stand away from the 2nd last named in Freethinkers, and lets you avoid the two AoE’s. Don’t sell it to vendor, you can hotkey and use it from inventory, and it does 1k dmg or so (two hits) so keep it! There are of course plenty of other quests that mains typically do that alts do not. The Qeynos Claymore is another. When I think of all the time I spent on my fury, only to have her stashed aside now for my illusionist, it can make me ill. My fury has her DT access, and her Claymore. She also has her Chel’Drak ring. My illusionist, has not even started DT access, she has one more quest to finish in SoS for Claymore. She’s got her Chel’Drak ring at least. She’s missing a lot of L&L still, where as the fury has all of hers completed. Is the illusionist any worse off as a raider for not having these things completed? Nope, she can do her job either way, but that’s the difference between a main and an alt - the illusionist would be a better raider with these things completed. I know some can manage to get it done on everyone, but guilds typically do mass claymore updates far and few between and for mains. I have not seen very many AoAx2 runs, or SoS grinds for Claymore updates for alts.

I got to talk to Kilanna before she had to rush off to work this morning, it was nice. That’s another thing I sort of miss, my little guild with people that I was quite close to. Not that I can’t also learn to get close to the folks in my new guild, but anyone who knows me realizes that I’m fairly quiet and keep to myself in game, I do my own thing, and I enjoy it that way. I do group up, but not constantly. Sorry if that comes off as being harsh, it’s just the way I play this game though as it’s going on three years now. I’ve been raiding for so long and seen end game content that I don’t feel the same excitement as other people maybe.

Anyhow, again, enough of my rambling and ranting. Unrest was fun in any case. The warden (67) in group did die a lot from one shots. They got their class hat upgrade. The cloak of unrest is currently selling for 100p on AB for looting rights, and that also dropped, the necromancer in the group won the roll (I declined, since Dasie is just an alt and she doesn’t need it). The assassin / ranger breastplate dropped, but no one needed that. Nothing else of any importance dropped, but it was still a nice clean run at least.

One of the main reasons I wanted my “main” Stargrace to be a tinkerer, who wouldn’t want feign death

First of all, I forgot to mention this earlier this week, but congratulations to Cordanim and also to Time Sink, for being featured along with this blog in the Town Crier! I meant to write about it when I first saw it but it completely slipped my mind, go figure. The past few nights have been filled with raids, and when they’re not filled with raids, with power leveling people for the new guild I’ve joined. More about that later.

Today was a blissfully quiet day. I got to work on my own tradeskills and I enjoyed doing it. Stargrace had been sitting at 224 tinkering for quite some time. I knew if I could just grind my way through the tier (5) that it would be smooth sailing with T6/T7 since the supplies are so low to purchase. It took a few hours, but I did it. Stargrace is finally a 350 tinkerer. Which lets her use / make a handful of items that I adore. One of them is the feign death machine shown above. It’s better then the shadowknight;s version of feign death, and makes me feel like a necro. I also get a mem-wipe item, handy for raids. I can make a hover device, and the mender bot. Have I mentioned I love tinkering?

There seems to be a new fade with higher end raiding guilds, and I’m not particularly keen on it. Instead of trying to find classes someone needs for a raid, for example a bard. They (the guild, leaders, officers) have members who are already a part of the guild, make those needed classes and set aside their mains, for “the good of the guild”. This does a few things. Number one, it leaves people with a whole lot of alts, and number two it allows a raid to just insert <random class here> out of convenience instead of letting people play what they actually want to play. There’s a few people who stick with the classes that they started with at the beginning of the game, but about 90% of everyone I know has at least one other level 70 alt or high 60’s. They don’t play them in raid guilds because they want to, but because they’re asked to.

I’ve always said that I envy people who only have one “main”. It’s hard to have four level 70’s. It LOOKS fun, but it’s not. It’s hard to do the same quests over and over. To afford masters on each one of them (I’ve been lucky there) and numerous other annoyances. It’s difficult to be asked to play a specific character on a raid and then wish you were playing your other character. Anyhow, rambling here. I’ve been tired this weekend and hopefully tomorrow’s post is a little more coherent and not so drab.