Goudia proudly wearing her new hat, new breastplate, and some new gloves

Managed to do a few remaining quests in Lesser Faydark yesterday (thank you to Gerbil for the help with those heroics) and some in Loping Plains (thank you Shadowgeist for helping me out there) and got Goudia to 67. Means 3 more to go and she’ll be able to wear the rest of her pretties. A huge thank you to Kandrial as well, who helped get me into an empty Freethinkers Hideout zone, so that I could get a quest update that rewarded a nice item for the bardling, the runed relic circlet. It has +30 to all spells on it, and as I’ve posted before, bards attacks are considered spells. At least the majority of them. I have 6 pages of “spells” in my knowledge book, and three pages of CA’s.

So technically speaking, I’m int / str as far as damage goes, and agi for power. Goudia is sitting at 408 str 483 int and 283 agi (not the greatest stat of hers I know). As soon as I can wear all the other gear I’ve got on her that should boost up quite a bit. I realize that bards during a raid are so busy casting jesters cap on folks and PoTM and all their other bonus spells that dps is a low priority, but I enjoy being able to do a little bit of solo’ing (hah, who am I kidding, I practically always solo) between other things.

The bard is very different from all my other classes. I enjoy her a lot. Is that to say that I enjoy playing her more then all of my other characters? Well, I’m actually not sure. From time to time I miss my healers. I miss the hard work I put into them getting them where they are, and yes I miss their gear too. Only natural I think. So I’ll continue to get Goudia closer to 70 (even with the sudden surplus of bards I’ve seen scattered around Norrath, which is just odd might I add, we seem to have a healer shortage though, or maybe tank depending on the time of day). Working on her SoD, Claymore, various L&L quests, HQ’s, her house.. There’s plenty to keep me entertained in game.

Sales have been slow for my poor little weaponsmith, and a few others are experiencing the same drought it seems. I’ve been putting ebon weapons (as well as feysteel when it’s cheap) for sale at a fairly smooth price, the first day everything sold and I was very excited. Now though my merchandise seems to be sitting for a week or more before it starts to move. I suppose it’s just a slump in the market and maybe people are below or above the crafting level I’m trying to push out. Speaking of which, another goal for Goudia, she needs a few more crafting levels. I spent last night making adornments for her gear in preparation for 70, attached those pieces I knew would not get an upgrade for quite some time (breastplate, gloves, legs, shoulders, ears, weapons, bow..etc) and realized just how much time money and effort goes into properly gearing up a single character, and this is my.. fifth one? Wow.

Once Goudia hits 70 and I continue to work on her tradeskill, I’ll be looking to level up both the coercer and the brigand, I think. Then there’s also a templar I’ve access to that I may help level up, and a fabled 70 swashbuckler who I’d love to play with a little. I still of course envy those who can just settle down on one character and play that character continuously, but I don’t think I’m that sort of person. I seem to always flounder about from character to character depending on what mood hits me.

Goudia in Loping Plains, taking care of a little ghoul business

I decided to hang around Loping Plains last night with Goudia, completing a few quests that she had (before they all turned to heroic at least) and getting the few tid bits of discovery experience that she had yet to get. Started the hand of glory quest (one of my favorites) and finished off entering the veil (one of my least favorite quests). She’s sitting at around 45% exp right now, which is great. Thunderwalker surprised me yesterday by giving me the troubador legendary hat from vaults, which has the feather I’ve been eyeballing for Goudia (cheers!) so a huge thank you for that. More inspiration to get level 67 and higher. She’ll be able to wear the new hat as well as the relic breastplate next level. Then it’s just two more before she can wear her legendary set gear, and one more after that for her weapons.

I played Sensual just for a short bit, completing a few more quests with her along with a dirge. She’s a lot of fun to play, and I’ll be posting an rp note surrounding her past either today or tomorrow, we’ll see.

Faydai hit 67 sage this morning, only two more to go (I’m not concerned with hitting 70 right away as there are no books for her to scribe and she’ll level off of combines alone) and then she’ll be done her crafting for a bit. I’m beginning to stock pile T7 raws in preparation for RoK. I don’t want to have to search far and wide for T8 raws that are going to be in high demand, especially with tinkering and transmuting galore.

Waiting for Goudia to get a bit more vitality back before I continue with her tradeskilling. It’s a painful process. Weaponsmiths don’t get a huge amount of recipes, not compared to my other crafters at least. Granted my woodworker probably gets the least amount of recipes. Which is why she’s sitting at 62 and I’ll be lucky if I ever obtain the rest of her levels.

A few short term goals: L&L’s completed on Goudia, Level 70, Progress in Claymore, SoD, DT access, and maybe MoA (though I doubt it, MoA is sort of useless for bards. I’d rather the Sour Song Choker from Unrest). We’ll see how many (if any) of these I can acomplish. I wish I could /claim some exp potions on her for either adventuring or crafting, but alas I’d already spent them all on the healers before I moved them over to their own account. Figures.

Legends of Norrath comes out in a short while (either next week or the week after, I forget) and I’m actually looking forward to that. Problem is, I’m not sure if I’m looking forward to the actual card game, or just the fact that there are house item rewards. I’m sure you can all guess which has a higher priority for me.

Goudia keeping busy…

I typically refuse to level my crafters if they have no vitality. Making things for very little profit with even less experience as a reward is not exactly the way to keep motivated. However introduce the experience upon completion of writs, and suddenly I’m eating them up, vitality or not. It takes 5 non-rush order writs, with no vitality at all, to get a level in crating. That’s 60 combines. It’s actually not too bad at all. I’m trying to push Goudia into the next tier, and then of course my main goal is to get her to 70 before RoK comes out. The hardest part is actually making sure I have enough metals to get through the levels. I’m not sure about other servers, but on Antonia Bayle, lower tier metals like carbonite and fulginate are going for anywhere from 20s to 35s in some cases, each. It makes for some fairly painful crafting if you’re the sort who buys their supplies.

I also managed to get Goudia into a quick Valdoons run yesterday with Thunderwalker and his boxed warlock Gerbil, I played Shadowgeist. It was my first time tanking the zone and I don’t think I did that bad. Gerbil ganked off of me maybe once and not for long. Thunderwalker did die once but only because I had accidentally pulled three encounters while he had a ward up. We were attempting to get a piece to drop for Goudia or Gerbil, both of whom could use their legendary class sets still, but of course as the game works, the shadowknight forearms dropped. On the plus side, it means that they won’t drop next time since I stashed them in Shadowgeist’ bank. I really like the new method of legendary set drops.

It’ll be nice to start working some baby alts up next. Goudia is fine and dandy sitting at level 66 and I will get her closer to 70 over the next months but I’ve always had a soft spot for lowbie alts and twinking them out with new gear and new spells. Just the way I like to enjoy the game. Every so often it’s nice to take a break from the end game stuff.

Today I’m hoping to get Faydai closer to 70 sage, I’ve got her sitting at 65 with full vitality and that should help her at least get three levels. We’ll just have to see how it goes. Other then that, I’m feeling a wee bit under the weather, so I haven’t had a whole lot to say this morning. Damn summer time flues.

Just one of the many toys I’ve got stashed aside for Goudia, if she ever hits 70

It is probably just me, but it seems like levels are taking forever lately. It’s probably because I tend to be very anti-group (why be anti-group if you’re playing an MMO, right?! I know the arguments) but Goudia finally managed to hit level 66 last night. I worked on the simple SoD quests (which were not actually that simple at all) and did a few collections to net me the final 20%. She scribed her new master spells and as I tried to clean out her bags some I realized that she’s got over 15 pieces of gear / masters saved up for her journey to 70. If that’s not motivation to level I’m not sure what is. The bow pictured above is just one of the items I’ve stashed aside for her. She’s also got 3 pieces of her legendary set gear (all of the tradeable pieces) two very pretty weapons, and lots of masters, as well as her relic breastplate and a few other odds and ends.

I haven’t quite figured out which adornments she’ll need, but hopefully Thunderwalker will be helping me out with that. I’d like to get them made for the pieces that I at least know she is not upgrading any time soon, the weapons, the legendary set gear, earring, bow, etc. Though the bow is pretty much a given as she’ll get the fabled +10 dps adornment I’m pretty sure. I know and understand that during a raid a troubador is very busy casting jesters on people and they may not exactly have the time to be dps’ing during the battles, but for solo’ing I absolutely love this class. Yesterday I spent some time duo’ing in Tunaria with the mystic and bolster pushed my int up to around 750 - made for some very nice dps.

So what is on the schedule for things I’d like to accomplish? I want to see Goudia hit 70 before RoK (she’s 4 levels away, this will be an easy one to acomplish) then I’d also like to see her progress claymore, SoD, and a few other quests that she’s avoided. I want to get her cloak of flames (just for fun mostly) and get her worshiping a deity. I was thinking of starting with Zek because it’s at least something I can full complete, and then moving to Sol Ro for the +spell damage cloak. She’s wearing a little one from Steamfont at the moment. I really want to finish the cloak of flames for her as well, just because it would look nice.

I also want a hat with a feather for her. How girlie is that hmms. The level 67 troubador hat is for sale for 8p, however the people are not selling from their homes and I’m not keen on paying the fee. I’ve mailed those selling the item in an attempt of talking them down, but we’ll have to see where it goes (if it goes anywhere, no replies as of yet). Faydai hit 65 sage, yes, I know, slacking again. Other then that things are fairly quiet with me as always. I’m sorry that I haven’t had too much to talk about lately, but it’s just been one of those weeks (or months).

Eidolon takes down the Avatar of Hate - another smooth kill!

I was lucky enough to be wandering through when the Avatar of Hate was up, and got a chance to watch the battle. Another avatar fight that I’ve never seen before, so it was pretty exciting for me. It’s a little hard at times to figure out what is going on, but I got the basics down. The most amusing part was watching people from other servers throw insults at the raid as they were attempting to take down the mob. I never really understood that, after all, what’s the big deal. It doesn’t make you any better of a person, and it certainly doesn’t affect the raiding guild any. So to the Dissolution member who was there (may want to hide your alts) you really didn’t accomplish too much except making yourself look like an ass. It’s ok though, it happens.

The zone ended up crashing on the second pull, have to love it when that happens. It does happen though. At least it was at the beginning of the fight (or so a friend told me, it could have been worse!). I had a lot of fun watching it. Not sure why I enjoy it, but I do.

I worked on SoD today. It was painful. I managed to get part of the New Tunaria ones completed, but they’re slow and annoyingly painful. It’s bringing back all of my memories of the first time I completed the chain of quests on Dasie. Not something I wanted to go through again - but sort of fun in a weird twisted way for Goudia. I have a lot of quests to work on, I still haven’t even completed to speak as a dragon - although I’ve got the quest starter I just haven’t felt like running around picking up runes. Especially since I already am going to have to run around picking up statues for SoD. Maybe I can hold off (or catch up) and get them both at the same time. So I’ve got SoD, Claymore, and I’d like DT access, then there’s the dps earring from lesser faydark that I want to complete, and a few other odds and ends. We’ll see how it goes. Maybe some motivation and inspiration to play Goudia. I also really want to work her crafting levels up, but it’s difficult without any vitality, even with the experience from writs.

Spoiled rotten Goudia, got herself three new pretties..

This probably sounds very egotistical of me, but there’s really no other way to word it, and I think plenty of people follow this rout. I consider myself to be moderately nice in game. I may not be the most patient of people, but those who are my friends know that they can ask me for anything. Or at least, they should know. My friends in return are the same way, some of the nicest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing in my online world. So last night when I heard that a friend had accidentally mailed 7 acrylia clusters to the wrong person (dang those weird spellings!) of course I did the natural thing and bought 7 acrylia clusters and made them the jewelry that they were looking for. I didn’t think twice about it, I had the coin (just barely) and made it, mailed it.

The next day (that being this morning) Darcyle said he had three items for me, as thank-you’s for me being so nice. I was a little taken aback. I mean, I know folks are nice.. but well. The items he gave me were: class pants, class gloves, and a torn ligament bow (has int and a de-agro on it). I felt like a complete newb (not a bad thing) drooling over the items. I’ve raided end game before, I’ve played with some top of the line players, but I’ve never managed to complete a class set of legendary gear. Mostly because I flip flop from character to character. It made me smile and start to think of all the wonderful people I’ve met in game. Gothun tries his best too, he sends me raws for crafting that I appreciate so much. Kilanna is wonderful to me with her conversation (anyone who knows me knows I chatter a whole lot) Thunderwalker has helped me out with spells and gear, Shadowgeist of course has done so much for me over the years that I could not even begin to count. So to all my friends out there, Beeglin, Cordanim, Woof, the ones mentioned above, Lader, and even those I no longer keep in touch with - thank you. You’re the reason I play this game. It’s not to get uber loot, or be the best at anything, but the social aspect that keeps me here.

Enough of tha gooey stuff! In other news.. Xoolander (Shadowgeist) had to be renamed, which was a shame. He’d gone to 63 without incidents, but on an Rp server it doesn’t take much to set someone off. So he’s now Bloodpact. He also hit level 65, which is amazing. His alt just eats up the levels and I’m not sure how he does it.

Also, got new speakers yesterday. Shadowgeist decided my old ones were crappy (and they were, even if I was happy with them). So we picked up new ones. Much nicer. We also went to visit my folks and wow I actually had a lot of fun. My baby brother (no longer a baby, he’s 17) just recently bought himself a wii. So for the after noon I battled my mom, Shadowgeist, and my brother in games of tennis, bowling, golf, and other random goodness. I looked at my web site through the browser on the tv, and had a load of fun. Of course then during a particularly intense tennis match my mom swung her arm back and smashed it into the living room wall which was not so good, swollen finger and bruised she’ll be going to get it checked out today. She also took out a nice section of the wall at the same time. Dad was gone to work on someone’s computer, we didn’t tell him how the wall got damaged, hehe.

Finished off bone-clasped girdle for Bloodpact yesterday too. It was a fairly productive Sunday. Hopefully I can get Goudia a few levels so that she can wear all this gear I’ve got stored up for her!

Lack of interesting posts is not my fault I swear! Ok, ok. Perhaps it is my fault. I’m still floundering about in game deciding what I want to do, and lately it changes from hour to hour. I started on Goudia, exp’d her in SoS along with Forever and Xoolander. Group snagged a dirge, so I logged to my illusionist to help out with her instead. Forever and Xoolander each got a level. At this rate everyone is going to pass Goudia in levels and she’ll be stuck at 65 until RoK comes out. Not a large deal to me. There are plenty of bards out there and I’m probably not even that good at playing her.

So later on in the day I saw a little guild asking for extras (Kindred Spirits, if you’re from AB and know who they are) for their courts raid. I like courts a lot, great way to get masters that rarely drop, as well as a long of guild status. We died a few times, I played Misako for this one. I miss playing my healers, and as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Misako is my favorite of all the healing classes. There’s just something about the combination of wards and buffs and puppy and bolster that just makes it so much fun to play.

I had one of the artists at the signature forums on eq2players design a signature for Misako last week as well, I think it turned out very nice. I’ve never bothered to figure out how to make them myself, though I suppose I really could try. Especially since I spend a lot of time drawing and doing photoshop images and what have you. It’s just been a while since I’ve bothered. Too caught up in other things I suppose. Yes, yes, we all know that’s an excuse.

Tomorrow I’ll be headed to my folks place for a few hours, to do a weekend visit for lunch. They live about an hour from me, and I don’t visit them nearly as often as I should. Some how EQ2 will have to survive without me, I’m sure it will manage.

Tonight Goudia hit 41 weaponsmith, and I think I’ll take the rest of the evening to work on her house some. She could use a merchant area. I think she’ll be slightly obsessed with her weapons and armor trinkets (hopefully) so her house will reflect it. Or at least that’s the ideas bouncing around in my head. The Norrathian Homeshow section of the eq2 forums showed some absolutely amazing housing ideas today and sort of inspired me.

Oh, side note. I really hate annoying people who bring up other people’s real lives in level channels. For example. Person A bad mouths person B and their play style. Person B doesn’t have anything witty to say back so they fall onto the “you have no life” argument. Person B really knows nothing at all about person A’s life, and the fact that they even bothered to bring it into the argument is just sad. I have nothing against a good ‘ol argument or even friendly bashing in game about play styles, gear, tactics, whatever. But taking shots at someone is just not cool, no matter if they may seem to deserve it or not.

The Avatar of Valor is a pretty intimidating looking fella, no?

Congratulations to the guild Eidolon here on the AB server, who took down the Avatar of Valor last night while I parked Goudia not too far away on a hill to peek and watch. I’ve actually never done any Avatar fights myself (for those who don’t know what avatars are, they’re contested epic representations of the gods that are currently in Norrath) but I do love watching the battles. Every guild does things differently, everyone has their own strats. I watched Valor taken down a few times on LDL when I was there, by Strike. So watching a new guild attempt it (new to me at least) was fun, and impressive. The main tank rarely ever dropped below 90% health, and stayed at max power the entire fight. I saw someone ‘rip’ (take agro from the tank) once, not that they lasted long once it had happened. Every Avatar fight is slightly unique, this one spawns sets of adds (a lot of them do) that have to be dealt with during the fight. Anyone who’s done pretty much any raiding in EQ2 (or even any regular grouping) knows that adds can actually be the most difficult portion of any fight. It’s not necessarily the main target that smacks you around nearly as much as getting swarmed by adds.

Along with Thunderwalker, the guild that a few of my alts are in called ‘Dragons Flight’ hit level 20! Means more bank slots, of course a wonderful thing. Also means a few more levels and then the next portion of the guild cloak will be available, etc. Torrent Knights is also almost level 20. It’s slow going but none of us are huge grinders as far as guild status is concerned. I’ve been having fun as always, even with the plethora of alts.

If you check out the comments in the post before this one, you’ll see exactly why I love writing, and why I enjoy Eq2 to begin with. Comments like that obviously make me feel good about things, that I can some how in some weird way reach out to people through my writing. Does that make sense? Well it does to me at least, and I suppose that’s all that matters.

Still not sure what direction I want to head in game. I’m not exactly restless, but I don’t know if I want to raid, or work up alts, or craft or complete old quests, etc. I am fairly certain that I’ll just stay where I am for now until RoK comes out and things get shuffled. Then I’ll see where I stand. Or who knows perhaps things will change drastically in the next few months. I’m looking forward to the new expansion being released. Not exactly looking forward to ‘the grind’ to level 80 but I’m not dreading it either. I think that progression is a much needed thing, and we’ve all been level 70 for far too long. I’m almost on my 5th level 70 (not to mention crafting levels) and that’s just crazy. Well, I never said I wasn’t a little crazy *chuckles*.

Gothun has been doing well in game, he joined a new guild. I don’t get along with them, at all, but I’ve never been one to judge someone else based on their guild tag — unless they personally piss me off. I did warn him about the guild though.

I haven’t been working on Misako’s house lately, and I really should do some harvesting - but I’m feeling an urge to play my necromancer (who’s been sitting at level 55 for quite a long time now) so we’ll see where I end up! Happy gaming, everyone should smile, after all it’s the weekend! Well, practically, it’s Friday at least.

By far one of the best quests I’ve done

Yesterday was another fun day in EQ2, and of course I stumbled over one of the best quests I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing. Now, Cordanim has some pretty nice walk throughs and information posted on the two starter quests to get to this instance, one here and then the other one here. I couldn’t figure out if he ever got around to writing about the third quest, which is inside the prison itself.

If you’re a quester to any extent, I highly recommend this chain of quests. The first one seems quite boring (I had to hunt from treasure from the beaches by the druid rings way out to the island by the lighthouse, on the other side of the zone), the second quest is fun but you’ll want a walk through if you’re impatient. The third quest.. makes everything worth while. You are sent to the prison to free the admiral. This zone does not look like any of the other zones out there. It’s a boat, docked at an island. There’s a huge metal cage type structure in the center of the island, and it’s surrounded by rujarkian orcs along with some dead pirates (gnomes none the less). Your mission (should you choose to accept!) is to run up to the (locked) doors, killing everything in your path. Letting your two gnome companions blow up the door (literally) and making your way inside, finding the key to unlock the admiral, and killing a named afterwards. Then escorting them both back to the awaiting ship.

How exciting is that. While you’re there, don’t forget to pick up the Bootstrutters guide to Ro (a book that I didn’t even know existed), one can never have enough house items. There’s also a pretty nice quest for adventurers to complete while they’re inside. Don’t make the same mistake I did though (unless you want to do the instance a second time) and kill the named to the right of the fire place first. He’s needed in the second portion of the quest, and he’s not of much use if he’s already dead. So you’ll want to head to the left of the fire place, and get the keys from the dead gnome. Unfortunately the orc prisoners all escape their cells when you do that, and before you know it you’re knee deep in some sort of orc riot (as posted above). Qutey had a little difficulty with the zone to be honest. It’s flagged as heroic though the mobs are single target down arrows, there are a whole lot of them. I’m not sure if the zone scales, but it seems to be great for those level 22-27 or so. You’re rewarded with some coin, three items (two belts and a weapon) +50 faction with the citizens of maj’dul, and of course experience / aa. Not to mention you get to explore a really fantastic zone with an amazing story line behind it.

The quest came out around the DoF period, so it’s been around for quite some time. I don’t know why there isn’t more emphasis on quests like this. I’d never actually done it before, though I have heard the odd person here and there talking about it.

I’ll probably be doing a lot of crafting for the next little while, maybe some harvesting. I’d love to be able to get my characters a little higher (Goudia specifically, sitting at 37 weaponsmith), we’ll just have to see how it goes.

One of the (many) tome quests in the game, this one I’d yet to see before since I always out leveled the zone, the quest starter is a no-trade item (sighs they need to change that in my opinion).

“The Great Flood,” a personal observation by a nameless traveller. The pages were apparently compiled based on his (or her) journal.

The route through the Blackburrow of the gnolls from Everfrost is dark, twisting and deep. I have quite often gotten lost as I do not use any source of light. That would reveal my presence to the cursed gnolls. My business is my own, taking me through these dark passages every fortnight.

My home is Halas of the North. My business takes me to Qeynos Hills and for that reason alone, I must suffer the treck through the stench of the gnoll pits. Sometimes I will send ahead my pet wolf Silkie to find sport in the darkness. She enjoys the exercise, for the gnolls cannot outrun her. I can follow their cries and need not use any of the dark methods I have learned to see in the dark.

On this journey, Silkie and I found the snows melting by day and freezing at night. Daggers of ice hung from the rocky outcroppings, sometimes breaking off and shattering on the ground below with a loud crack. Her tail between her legs, her ears darting back and forth, Silkie panted and paced, uneasy. Her troubled behavior made me uneasy as well.

At the entrance to the tunnels, we found the gnoll guards had abandoned their posts, leaving behind nothing but the cold embers of their watch fires. There used to be snow at this level, but there was not. The ground was moist with melting snow. Silkie refused to enter the tunnel until I threatened her. Then she scuttled ahead sideways, like a crab, trying to see both ahead of us and behind.

Down we went on our usual route, encountering nothing. The tunnels were silent, but for the constant drip-drip-drip of water in the dark. As we emerged from one narrow tunnel into a wider space, Silkie whimpered and whined, her misery echoing around the chamber. “Be still!” I commanded her. She fell silent and I was aware that the entire world had gone silent as well.

Suddenly came a large rending sound that shook the marrow of the mountains and threw me and Silkie to the ground. She scrambled to her feet and ran howling away through the darkness. I lay pressed against the rocky ground, hugging it as though I could stop its convulsions. Finally, it grew still. “Silkie!” I called into the silence. She did not answer.

No, Silkie did not come at my call, though I could sitll hear her terrified, high-pitched whimper echoing. Then she fell silent and I heard something else — a roar that I have never heard in those tunnels before. It reminded me of the scream the snow makes as it tumbles down a mountainside on a sleigh of ice. A roar covered in velvet.

I too scrambled to my feet, but with the unseen roar echoing through the chamber, I could not know which way to turn. I began my enchantment, though my teeth chattered. A heavy wind rushed into the chamber, bringing with it the smell of generations of foul gnolls from somewhere deep in the Blackburrow. It broke my concentration and my spell dissipated before I could cast.

And then the water surrounded me. It tumbled over me and over like a pebble on the sea shore. I could not tell what was skyward and which way led to death in its depths. The waters rushed onward, as frantic as I to find an outlet. After an eternity, the waters threw me onto an unseen ledge near the roof of the cavern before swirling away.

Though I lay on the ledge for days, the water did not drain. I was finally able to cast my light-giving spell and saw the ruins of the cavern below. My thoughts lay on my certain death and I was bitter and angry to die like a gnoll and not with honor inbattle. I would not die unsung. You who read this, know that the world was shaken and I survived. For a little while.