Last night was one of my two weekly Vanguard nights - and it was a lot of fun. Growlius and I got together at the Seawatch Coast to work on some of our Bounty Hunter quests. We’d also picked up 5-6 other quests that required killing in the area. So the majority of the evening was spent walking up and down the coast killing everything in our path. The guild was moderately busy with 8-10 people on, each doing their own thing. Growlius and I had to remember how to play our classes, as it’s been a little while. Plus with me playing two other mmo’s (EQ1/EQ2) I had to adjust my key commands slightly (alt G does not open the guild window in VG, as a constant reminder to myself). The quests were not too hard, and it’s probably better that way. We had to kill a few white four dots and I had to remember what all my spells did, but I found it was almost like riding a bike (it hasn’t been THAT long since I’ve played) and once I started playing again it all came back.

Vanguard was pretty busy, too. It was nice to see. We ran into a few other groups also working on their Bounty Hunter quests. We decided to use one of our 100% veteran experience rewards, which is what boosted up the experience by so much. By the end of the evening I was 60% into the next level, sitting comfortably at level 38. Which of course meant, new spells!

Most of the 9 spells were just upgrades to previous spells I had, but one converted my endurance (which I don’t use) into power for 30 minutes, which I think is fantastic. It can also be cast on anyone else. So if there’s any other mana using classes who don’t use their endurance at all, this buff is great for them.

After doing all of those BH quests we also walked away with a good amount of upgrades. Necklaces, pants, and a chest piece, all yellow or orange. It was a significant upgrade for me, my chest piece was just some common blue I’d found in previous travels. Since I’m a blood mage it’s important for me to keep up to par with my gear - if I have shoddy gear it means my spells won’t hit the mobs as easily, my heals can be resisted. I need to be able to actually hit the mob to guarantee a heal. Most of the time it’s not an issue, but some times we’re fighting red or purple encounters, and I have to rely on my target heals rather then life draining attacks. Either way.

It was a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to going back next week and maybe doing some crafting in between then and now so I can make some coin. Growlius loaded me up with a lot of harvested goods that he has no use for (and doesn’t want to be bothered to sell) so I’m going to see about turning those into items to sell on the broker. We’ll see how it goes. It’s always nice to have a little extra coin, and after giving all of mine away last time I played with the scavenger hunt - well, yeah.

Nostalgia the guild has had it’s issues with GM’s over the course of the two weeks we’ve been active. However, in my own personal experience, they’re still pretty damn fantastic. In order to play in the group (before I’d obtained station access) I had to delete a character of mine - and unthinkingly I deleted a 44 shadow knight named Satia, and a 13 wizard named Nukette. A few days later I realized that Nukette was actually my one true twink - decked out with gear from Greig himself. Not many level 13’s can say that. She’s wearing the Geomantic Fingers of Focus which my cleric at the time also managed to find. Grieg’s End is another one of those zones that I just absolutely love. I killed Grieg with my beastlord friend any time we found him up, and we leveled many many an alt in the zone. If I recall, we had the wizard sacrifice herself, and then dragged her corpse to the corpse of Grieg and rez’d her there so she could loot. In fact when I logged her in, after being restored, she was still in GE. It’s been years.

My shadow knight was also restored - for which I am very happy. The GM’s are under no obligation to restore characters to me, but they were prompt and courteous  (as was I) and I’m glad for the help.

I haven’t played a shadow knight in a long time. I typically hate tanks. They have spells though, and a pet, and well hey she looks pretty good too. Today I planned on taking her through some of the newer quests level 20-40 just to see how much I remember about playing her.

Last night, Lackey (20 Magician), Aerrik (19 Shaman), Spuc (17 Monk), and myself (20 Necromancer) decided we’d head to Upper Guk to meander around and kill things. We had an absolute blast on vent making crude jokes (Lackey summoned his Bristlebane Jester who shrunk a few of us and made a few others grow..) and just generally having a good time. We were going to attempt to head to Lower Guk - but things very quickly turned from grey to red inside Upper as it was, and we decided other wise. A few levels later and a lot of laughs, we called it a night and everyone (except the monk) gated out - leaving the monk to sacrifice himself to get a rez later. I would have felt badly, except that it was his choice and at these levels the exp loss is not so bad (plus, he’d just get a rez at the guild lobby later). We didn’t get any useful loot, but it was still a lot of fun to wander around accidentally pulling groups of three or four mobs.

I’ve been reading a bit about Playstation Home, with a new PS3 in the house and me not exactly being a huge fan of the typical console game this looks like something I may be interested in. Although I’m not interested in paying even more money to obtain ‘cool’ items, so that will be out for me. Here’s a brief overview from wikipedia:

Photographs and video released by Sony show Home users meeting in a plaza/town square type of area. They also show users in their own apartments with their own choice of decor and furnishings. Users can also invite other users to their apartments.

In the world outside of the player houses, players can meet and chat with other community-members. One can invite their friends, hang out and communicate via voice chat, or normal text chat, listen to music, play a game or exchange content. People who enter each other’s “home” (called a “HomeSpace”) can stream the host’s music and videos from their HDD. Videos are viewed via virtual Sony TVs, such as the BRAVIA. Photographs can be viewed via a virtual picture frame.

Every user has a private apartment space that they can modify and change over time. The basic apartment is free and will offer users lots of options for customization and personalization. In the future, Sony will provide tools that will enable users to have an even greater ability to create their own Home spaces and content.

At time of release, the user’s “home” will be streamed from their own PlayStation 3, meaning that if the user logs out of Home, then access to this user’s apartment no longer exists until the user logs on again. According to Sony, they are looking for new ways to get around this issue.

The world of PlayStation Home will not only consist of players’ houses, but there will also be arcade-games that can be played, as well as games like pool billiards and bowling.

Of course it’s not a video game, per say. But it’s enough to interest me. I’ve always been a huge fan of any sim-like game. Unfortunately I don’t own any of them any more since my baby brother swiped my Sims2 CD’s .. or whatever the 3D game was called when it came out. I love decorating and building homes (dur, that’s fairly obvious based on my obsession with Mmo housing). I’m so oblivious when it comes to games in general that I don’t even know of any (free) sim-like based games. I’m sure I’ve read of a few and just blocked it from my mind.

In any case, I’m looking forward to it being released. Things like this that don’t require groups for anything, where I can dress an avatar up and make a home and decorate it. No smushing of mobs, no running around half a world. I may not be into car racing games, or fps (first person shooter) or well, anything really. But I’ll always love the sims and anything that emulates that sort of game. I wonder if it’s a girl thing..

Urtog from our Nostalgia group moved his main warrior over to Luclin, and ever since has been hell bent on getting his epic 1.0 completed. Who can blame him? It’s an epitome of EQ1-ness, and was (and still is to a few) a major milestone. Over time though not many people still raid the 1.0’s, a lot of the encounters needed for various classes are on a permanent camped basis, farmed for their drops because a lot can be solo’d / duo’d / boxed.

So when he set forth the idea to go after his Chardok piece, which happened to come from the Queen, of course I jumped at the chance. Tipa would (again) be our fearless leader - and because of sheer uberness was our tank, our dps, and our healer. Urtog was our corpse clearer, and I was our (some what fuddled) navigator and lock-pickerer on my rogue, Invis Abletomobs. Basically the plan was, let Tipa do all the work. I kid you not. That woman is UBER. It helps, being decked out the way her character is. I’ve never gotten into that aspect of EQ1 before, I never really had the opportunity since I left for EQ2. It’s an interesting sight to see that’s for sure.

Anyhow, I scouted ahead (I love Shroud of Stealth, which is an aa my rogue has that lets her pass by things unaware that would typically see) and checked to see if the mobs were up - which they were. I then promptly set off a trap and died.

Woot. Wouldn’t be a Chardok run (hey, some mobs were still con’ing dark blue to me at level 70) if I didn’t die. So I wandered back to Chardok while Tipa set out clearing her and Urtog’s path with her mighty melee cleric ways. It was fun. She’d turn a corner, grab 20 or so mobs, and a few minutes later a sad little pile of corpses lay at her feet. Urtog and I grabbed our pom poms and acted as personal cheerleaders.

Our one issue was that none of us could snare, and the final mob of every encounter would make a beeline for their furthest friend which would in turn bring 20 of their furthest friends and before too long we’d have another dead party at our feet. It was a LOT of fun though. It’s great playing the whole lowbie nostalgia bit, but some times, you just want to wander around and play those old characters you have. I hadn’t touched my rough in three years. I didn’t even remember how to apply poisons, and the bazaar doesn’t have a search field to buy any. Looks like I’ll have to make some (some how).

So after a bit of time clearing, we downed both the Overking, and the Queen. Those two specific encounters were probably easier then anything else we’d fought that night. The Queen’s bard AoE still hurt me and Urtog real bad while Tipa stood there saying “She has an AoE? It hurts?” not feeling a thing. Lucky Halfling. In other fantastic news, we got our guild tag, FINALLY. Pictures of our guild hall to follow in another post. Just watch out for the healing pool, I hear some Vah shir have been using it as a litter box.

It stood just as imposing as I remember it. Just as scary as it was in EQ2? Well, not exactly. It’s surrounded by the same mobs, but they’re much lower level. Our Nostalgia group was scheduled to over take get a few levels in Kurn’s for the evening, and I was excited. 7pm was the meeting time, and we got to put our Fellowship Camp Fire into good use. Well, it looked cool in any case. A fellowship can be made up of 9 people and it allows you to place camp fires. You get a trinket from an npc in PoK and when three of you have gathered together, placed the camp fire, it allows other members who are not in the same zone as you to gate there. Pretty cool, eh? Guilds also have a version of this called banners. 13 members must be in the area to place a banner - ideal for raids (and stragglers).

Anyhow. As it turned out only 7 of our Nostalgia members showed up - Cordanim and Noffin being engaged in other real life issues, and Egat with something that had come up. Group Cool’s tank also couldn’t make it, and so with only seven of us there I volunteered to sit out. I didn’t want to have to split into two semi-full groups when they could form one full group, get plenty of experience, and I could wander around by myself. It seemed to work out alright - they headed downstairs after some sniffles and a few boxes of tissue later (on my end, of course, week two of no grouping with the fabled Tipa) and I headed upstairs to wack some skeletons.

I was slightly afraid of how my cleric dps would measure up to a full group downstairs taking down encounters. Turned out, I shouldn’t have worried. I used my veteran reward for a 30 minute experience bonus and if I had of had clarity it’d have been a lot quicker. I think my alchemist may actually be able to make clarity potions - or I can at least buy them some where, I seem to remember that much. So I think I’ll look into that for next time.

Using my spells vs. undead was certainly the way to go. It worked out very well and in the same amount of time that it took the core group to hit 19-20, I’d also managed to hit it. Well, at least (for now) I’m not behind. The entire time no other group (or person) entered the zone aside from a mysterious cleric who came and cast temperance on the group. I found it amusing that they just randomly showed up cast and then left. Thank you whoever you were.

If you’re interested in playing with the Nostalgia group, or just having a group of people around who you can chatter to, anyone is still more then welcome to join up. We ask that folks register on our forums here, and introduce yourself. Let people know whether you’d like to make the Friday night group (there are typically spots, or we’ll form up a third group) or if you’re just looking for people to talk to. We’re still waiting on the creation of our guild (two weeks and counting, come on SOE why not revamp the EQ1 guild format.. this is just getting to be annoying) but we’ll have one (eventually). We play on the Luclin server.

Next week we’ll be attempting our first (and hopefully our second) LDoN. So I went around to the Wayfarers camps and picked up my adventure stone. The stone also allows people to use the Magus’ to port around. There’s a handy one in the guild lobby which I’ll be taking advantage of I am sure. If everything goes well (and everyone shows up - though we already know one wizard can’t make it) it should be a lot of fun - and I believe the goal is to be between 20-25. Right now the Nostalgia group is slightly spread, we’re looking for everyone to be between 15-20 before we attempt our LDoN’s and not above 20. My cleric hit 20 yesterday, and my necromancer is 19 (waiting on Slackey Lackey)  so I created a bard just to play around on when I can’t level the other two. I’ve never played one before in EQ1 aside from just very briefly using a friends - it should be interesting, to say the least.

One thing that always astounds me when I return to a game - is how much crud I have kicking around in various bags and banks. At one time or another I’m sure the order in which I’d placed these items made some sort of sense to me. But three years later, that is not the case. I had bits and pieces strewn about, parts of keys that I’d long since forgotten (which I deleted as well, since most areas have been removed of their key requirements) and crafting supplies in every nook and cranny.

So I took a few hours yesterday (yes, in the end it took that long) to organize the bags of one character. I still have three more that I need to go through. This was the main one though, my over all crafter (and enchanter) Kameeko.

I still have bits and pieces of her enchanter epic (1.0) in one bag, having never managed to get the piece I needed from Plane of Fear. There are pelts of all shapes and sizes, patterns, metals, gems, tools, and I had a backpack full of very old gear (mostly from Plane of Mischief which is my most favorite zone in the entire game) and just… everything. My druid’s bags are filled with foraged items and food bits, she’ll probably be next. Then there’s my shaman and all of her alchemist / potions which are everywhere. The rogue has poisons (being a master crafter way back in the day) and they all have quest bits and pieces of things strewn about.

I’m not exactly a neat freak, but in game especially I do like to know where everything is, how I can get to it easily, and what it’s used for. It does me no good if I open my bags and have to search for 10 minutes for an item - only to find out I don’t have it at all. Or for me to go spending money on an item that I’ve had stashed away for years. I actually enjoy organizing these bags too, it’s fun looking over all the stuff I’ve accumulated, looking it up online to see what it’s for. Humming and hawing over key pieces and whether I keep them for the memories or toss them aside since access is not required.

Tonight is the second night of “Nostalgia the guild” and I believe we’re going to Kurn’s Castle. It may not be implimented in EQ2 yet (maybe it is, I have been playing slightly but I’m behind on the updates) but it should be a lot of fun. The imposing tower resides in both games, and they both send shivers up my spine every time I approach.  I managed to get my LDoN stone yesterday. Handy to use at the Magus’ as well since they port you to the camps - and there’s a magus in the guild lobby. My necro and cleric are both sitting at 15, with the cleric sure to get some levels tonight. Looking forward to seeing everyone there (except Cordanim - happy birthday hon have a great night out!).

A shameless plug for some of my art work I’ve got over at DeviantART. Who says all I do is game! This Christmas I was given my first ever SLR digital camera, an Olympus E-410, and I love it. I’m typically a pen and ink sort of artist as is apparent by some of my earlier pieces, but recently switched away from traditional art to delve more into photography. I’m still meandering my way through the phone book sized manual, but am having a blast with it in the mean time.

Ideally, I’d like the bit of code up above to go into one of my side bars in my wordpress template, but I use widgets, and have no idea how to go about that. I’m not a web designer, though it’s always one of those ‘things’ I’d love to teach myself. Speaking of teaching myself - I’ll be (hopefully) getting into HDR and tone mapping here in photography shortly. Should lead to some interesting pictures.

I’m one of those people who work best with a schedule. That’s one of the reasons why I knew I’d love our Friday night Nostalgia group. I like being able to log in, and know what we’re doing. We don’t spend hours in game wasting the Friday night away doing that (which is the point, I’m sure). I’ve always been a follower more then a leader, so logging in and just being told where to head, is perfect for me too. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just my play style.

So me and a friend talked for a while and decided that since we’ve both got station access, why not pick two days a week to play Vanguard. The game *is* great and I still love it. It just wasn’t quite enough to hold my attention as a “one game only” sort of deal. There are three games I play now with station access, Vanguard, EQ2, and EQ1. So on Monday and Tuesday nights I’ll be playing Faydai, my level 37 blood mage, on the Seradon server in Vanguard. So far it’s just me and Growlius who will be playing, but more are welcome to join of course. We’re not starting from scratch or doing anything unusual aside from setting two specific days to play.

Then on Friday nights I’ve got the Nostalgia group which is coming along fantastic. I hit level 15 on Ishbel (cleric) which was high enough for me to wear the DoN cultural armor I had made. The game is down for 6 hours today, I had hopped to make my necromancer a set of gear as well. I made Lackey some yesterday, though he still has to add the augmentations to it.

At first I was leery about having a schedule for games. In the end though I think it’s exactly what I needed. That doesn’t mean things can’t change, or that everything is planned out, but at least I won’t run around wondering what to do so much of the time. The schedule is flexible enough that I still have four evenings a week to do whatever whim I may have. I typically game from 7-11 nightly, since I don’t watch tv I game. I do pop in a few times during the day (mostly afk, especially in EQ1 where I tend to leave a trader up to sell) but aside from that my days are filled with ‘real life’ whatever that is.

This morning I logged into Vanguard briefly, I don’t have much coin there any more since I gave most of it to guild mates before I took my break - but I didn’t want my house to run out of rent and then lose the T5 house I had built that I am still oh so proud of. Logging into game made me remember why I enjoyed it. I noticed I had mail — oopsie, a guild mate who hadn’t heard that I had switched games (again) sent me 150 dusky timber to build their components for a house. Suppose I’ll get to that later today. I’m hopefully also going to be doing some harvesting, so I can make a little more coin. My house is paid for the next 20 weeks, at least that’s one concern taken care of. Being able to afford my spells (since I get some at 38) would be a nice thing. We’ll see how it goes!

It doesn’t matter what game I play, I’m always heavily involved in the crafting. In WoW the crafting was simple and easy, but there were unique recipes you could quest for and gather materials for. I liked that aspect of it even if I didn’t actually enjoy the crafting process itself. In Vanguard, crafting is taken to a whole new level and it’s exceptionally complicated and requires dusts and powders and there’s so much to it. It was a game unto itself. In EverQuestII crafting is a timed event that you have to constantly be present for, and while the risk is not as bad as EQ1 or VG, it’s still there. In EQ1 I’ve been trying to get back into the crafting. There’s a few significant differences between EQ1 crafting and EQ2. In EQ2 you’re limited to one craft per character. In EQ1 you’re not limited at all so long as you get the aa’s required to add more. I’m not sure if the numbers have changed - but the way it used to work was you could reach 200 in any (all) crafts, and then ONE of those, you could get to 300. You could also get your “masters” item from it. If you wanted more then one trade at master level, you’d have to sink aa’s into it.

You could also use aa’s to purchase things like a reduced failure rate. Great when you’re working on those augments (which I did). You can also reclaim items from a failed combine, something unheard of in most games. Once you failed, that was it.

When I left EQ1 three years ago my crafting character was Kameeko. She had:

• 267 Jeweler (Master)
• 200 Research (apparently the cap on this has moved to 300 for everyone)
• 200 Brewing
• 200 Fletching (arrows)
• 195 Baking
• 182 Blacksmithing
• 174 Fishing (I don’t even remember how to fish now)
• 187 Pottery
• 164 Tailor

I worked really hard on my crafting, and was proud of what I’d accomplished. When omens of war was introduced and augments became more common, along with the skill of crafting and upgrading augments, I thrived. I used to sell a LOT of them using materials me and my beastlord friend would farm. Seems like ages ago.

Anyhow, getting back into crafting has been complicated and difficult, but it’s slowly coming back. Especially due to great sites like EQTraders. I used the site way back when and still find it’s one of the best out there. It may not always be 100% up to date, but for what I need at the moment it works perfectly.

I’ve been selling some old crap that I’ve had stored on my other characters for some time now. Sales are not exactly frantic, but I made 16,000p over the past week or so. That’s more then enough to get by for now with general things like crafting. I’m slowly starting to remember what all the stuff is that’s in my banks, specifically the 3-4 backpacks I had filled with patterns (for the DoN cultural gear) that my enchanter was hording. I still have a long way to go, but it’s been a lot of fun.

Yesterday my baby Drakkin made herself four new pieces of armor though I did fail the combines a few times too. She made a pair of boots, a helm, legs, and a wrist piece. At level 15 I can equip them and add the augments to them too. I had Kameeko make those as Ishbel is not quite big enough to do it. They require a special quest to get recipes for symbols. Anyone can make symbols for anyone else, though the gear is race restricted. So long as Ishbel can make her own gear, Kameeko can supply the augments. DoN cultural crafted gear has three augment slots, which is one of the main reasons I like it. LDoN drops augments (last I remember at least) at lower levels. There’s also a quest for an augment in Crescent Reach around level 30 or so. Ah, so much to remember, so much to do! It’s great to be back.

I’d have loved to quest for some gear, like others in the Nostalgia bunch seem to be doing, but alas, Drakkin don’t have armor quests. Not that I could see at least. The DoN cultural armor is not the best out there, so I’ll still be in the running for upgrades at least (especially since not all slots are covered) which is a big factor - but at least I won’t be trying to heal the group in rags, either.

I decided to take a look at how many posts I had on the blog now, since I’ve had it for quite some time -

Low and behold, I’ve hit (and past) my 600th post, standing at 615. Hopefully people have enjoyed reading, and if not, oh well. I enjoy writing and that’s good enough for me. Here’s to many more.

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