It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been blogging, or why you do it. When you see something posted about yourself some place else with a link back to your site - you get a little excited. It’s no different with me, either. I may not be one of the best writers out there (I know I’m not, that should read) and I know I’m not as popular as a lot of them, either. I don’t have any visions of grandeur nor do I have articles that spawn comments as often as those I read, but when I come across something posted like this on the VGplayer site, I still get excited.

Of course, it was written a little bit ago, and I didn’t notice it until now since I’m a little lax in checking for links back to my site.

Speaking of which - I’ve added a whole lot more links down the mmo blog section. Anyone I link there is someone I actually read on a daily basis (and some times more then once) and a good portion are people I know in game (typically by me stalking them). I love the friendships I’ve made, and I’ve had a lot of fun discovering other people who write about the games that I enjoy so much.

So keep up the good work, everyone.

It was fairly easy to get the rogue to 35 yesterday, and shortly after noon she was set for Friday. Minus the skills I still need to work up (lock picking, disarm trap, sneak and hide just to name the basics). I also decided on a role play story for the little gnome. She thinks she’s an ogre. Which means my first line of business is of course to teach her ogre, I’ll do that later today. I imagine that it will be difficult to play in my Nostalgia groups only speaking ogre but ideally that’s what I plan on doing. There’s always vent for other things I need to say. I took her to Stonehive for the last five levels and not only did her melee cloak drop (same one Urtog and Tipa had gotten a few nights back) but a caster cloak also dropped (seems to be rare) for Lackey. An augment also dropped that I quickly added to the cloak. We stayed at the entrance and pulled just the main floor of the hive itself, but it was still fun. No bum imprints in the honey this time around.

I started working on her cultural armor a bit last night, and managed to get her ancient book which lets me make backpacks of patterns. Next step is to work her tinkering to around 100-150 or so in order to make the level 35-40 gear. Or I could just make the level 15-20 gear since it’s just fine for now. Gnomes have one small advantage (if you could call it that, it’s more like a difference) in that they can either craft their gear through blacksmithing - or tinkering.

Since the ‘main’ skill I’d like to work up (aside from poison crafting) is tinkering, I’ll be sticking with that. I do need to find a better site though for tinkering information. EQtraders is alright, but they’re lacking any real section on the skill, and instead just have a host of recipes with trivial listed. Tipa also suggested a site for the rogue that has slipped my mind and I’ll have to nudge her about that again (I want to say.. safe house?). All in all, I’m excited to be playing the rogue and haven’t even poked into Eq2 for some time. It’s nice to find something that I can focus my attention on and not feel swayed by other games (yet).

EQ1 is down for 8 hours today for maintenance which seems to be the same no matter what game I play. Last night in game was quiet with Urtog testing out his spanking rod (on mobs, lets not get any ideas here), and Gozad working up his feign death. It shouldn’t be too much longer now before I stop moving like a herd of elephants, and more like a cat stalking its prey.

As most know, in EQ1 I have a plethora of alts. Always have. I originally signed up for Nostalgia the Guild with my cleric, however we honestly had enough healers - and so I switched to my necromancer who happened to be the right level when we were lacking dps. Upon further contemplation though, I’ve decided to level up a rogue to play with our Friday night groups. The big thing for me was to play something that actually relied on having a group, since that’s exactly what I’d have. The necromancer is fun, and a lot of dps - but she can solo just as easily as she groups. Not exactly what I was looking for there.

Along comes Dainty.

She’s a gnome rogue, sporting hot pink and black armor, with an affinity for shinies (which can be said for all rogues I’m fairly certain) and a fear of blood. I plan on working out some sort of role play story for her that I haven’t concocted quite yet. I love making up background histories and what not for my characters.

Last night thanks to temperance from one Brita, and buffs continuously from one very kind druid, I managed to make my way from 1-24 with relative ease. The goal is to be 30-35 by this Friday, and geared - with my skills worked up. Maybe not disarm trap as I’d have to actually go find, you know, traps. If there are lower levels where I can do this, please someone let me know. I’m already planning on a Befallen trip to work the lock picking (thanks Tipa for reminding me what that zones name was).

Aside from leveling up the rogue, I had the opportunity to tag along with Urtog while he worked on a weapon quest for a giant ancient road sign. Or at least that’s what the end result looks like. It’s either that or a primitive spanking rod, or perhaps a fly swatter. I’m not quite sure. Either way, congratulations to him for finishing that off.

It was also the Tuesday night Nostalgia run, they headed to Unrest and you can find Tipa’s amazing write up of the event. There’s still some time to join both the Friday and the Tuesday groups - and we’re also starting up a UK group (though there’s no set day yet that they’ll be meeting, there will be shortly). The level cap for the Tuesday group is (I believe) 25, the Friday group is 35, and anyone is more then welcome to come. Friday is looking for an enchanter, but as always we want people to play whatever they enjoy. What’s the point of paying $15 a month if you’re not playing something you have fun with.

As I leveled up the rogue I read over SOE’s emails to me (each ding) suggesting places to get experience. One place was Stonebrunt Mountains, a place I hadn’t been to in ages. I couldn’t even remember any camps for this zone. It was of course, empty. I also headed over to the Overthere, which was also - you guessed it. Empty. In fact the only places that weren’t empty, were Crescent Reach, and Blightfire Moors. Not that it bothered me too much since I was just trying to catch the rogue up for Friday.

Today I’m fairly confident I can get the rogue the rest of the way to 30-35, and get her skills worked on. I am also eager to not only begin poison crafting, but tinkering. The one tradeskill I’ve rarely (if ever) delved in. I’m looking forward to it!

“I’m sorry, but this isn’t my corpse.”

“What do you mean it isn’t your corpse, you know the people here are professionals, right? We don’t make mistakes.

“But it’s not my corpse, it’s all wrong!”

“We. Don’t. Make. Mistakes.”

“Look. If I was some two foot dwarf with NO hair, don’t you think I’d have known that before hand?”

“Perhaps you shaved, Sir. It’s not our concern to check the patrons before hand for their body hair.”

*Waving a beard around* “DOES IT LOOK LIKE I SHAVED?”

*A few feet away another discussion is going on*

“This is not my body.”

“Miss, we don’t make mistakes.”

“But look, the scales are a completely different colour, her hair isn’t even cut the same, and she’s at LEAST four times smaller then me!”

“Can you take another look? Our staff are certain this is indeed you.”

*Insert screams of frustration here*

It was late, but it was fun. Last night Tipa, Urtog, Lackey, and myself (on the cleric, not the necromancer) headed to Stonehive, a zone just off of Blightfire Moors. None of us had been there before, but Lackey had a few quests requiring the area. The mobs at the beginning were white and yellow to us. The further in we moved, the more red they became.

We died a whole lot at the start (well, everyone else did. Me, I ran in true cleric form) until Tipa joined up and we dropped one very disagreeable necromancer who felt the need to tell me for half an hour how it was our fault he had died (he had unscribbed feign death for the better of the group before hand) and how it would take him hours to get all those buffs he had again. That’s part of the game, was all I could tell him. Once Tipa joined we only died once - at the very end. By that point we were knee deep in bixie parts and having a lot of fun with it. Or at least I assume everyone was, it was late and I could have been hallucinating.

The best part, is I got to play my cleric in a group. I’ve gone on about how I loved to heal and not only how I loved to but how I was GOOD at it too (wow who’d have guessed!) for some time with nothing to back it up because I’m never healing. Last night everyone brought their A game though, and we did fantastic. Especially for four of us, in a zone filled with red.

Many levels were earned. Not sure about everyone else but I went from level 30-34 (almost, I’m 10% shy which is one kill in Blightfire). Tipa hit level 36, Urtog 35, and Lackey 34. A lot of quest items dropped which made me think I should have almost grabbed them first (the quests, that is) and a new cloak for Tipa and Urtog also dropped.

Before hand I got my monk to level 20, which was nice. Duo’ing with another monk when we both have feign death is also a good thing - though it’s too low on either of us to be exceptionally effective. I’ve been having a lot of fun in EQ1, and perhaps neglecting EQ2 some what - though I did manage to quest yesterday and finish off my Jarsath Waste gate hammer (finally). When I’m having so much fun in one game (for now at least) there’s no real desire to switch back and forth.

Thanks again Nostalgia The Guild for a fantastic night!

Seeress Ealaynya Ithis’s Holy Calling

Back when the gods had been silent for ages and the suffering of people of Norrath huddled together for refuge, faith seemed destined to die.

It was during this time that a young child by the name of Ealaynya Ithis started to exhibit clairvoyance and experience prophetic dreams. Even the most skeptical villagers were convinced when young Ealaynya led hunters to a crying child, having been lost for nearly a week.

She began to lead the village gatherers to hard found resources. Her retelling of her visions comforted them at the fireside. She had earned the praise of her village and brought a glimmer of faith to their forsaken lives. How could they keep such a child’s gift to their selves? She was like the harbringer of faith within this realm. Qeynos would be her pulpt!

They abandoned their village for the city of Qeynos. There they discovered the once grand Temple of Life, nearly abandoned.

The temple that awaited Ealaynya paled in comparison to the one she had beheld in her visions. Only a few acolytes of the Prime Healer remained andthe temple rested in near ruins. The beauty of the pool of Jahnda that once heald the majestic koalindl, fish from the plane of Tranquility, was now dingy and empty of life. The acolytes would not listen to the villagers’ claims, dismissing them as beggars looking for refuge in their sacred hall.

As the villagers and the acolytes argued, Ealaynya walked silently to that carts that held her few belongings. She rummaged through and reached far into a niche, having to stand on her toes to reach her prize. Her hands slowly emerged from the darkness grasping a glass bowl.

Within the bowl was a small, colorful fish. It had been a year ago that alone; she had found her way to a tiny pond in which a single, colorful fish swam within the clear, warm water. She carried the fish back to the village and fed it a morsel of bread everyday, until this day.

Ealaynya walked to the edge of the murky water of the once grand Pool of Jahnda. She began to pour the contents of the fish bowl slowly into the pool. The stream of water hit the film and broke the plane of algae on the pool’s surface.

Upon hearing this, the acolytes ran toward her screaming for her to cease her blasphemous action. Ealaynya was deaf to their cries. As they neared her the tiny, colorful fish was carried through the stream of water and swam into the blackness of the pool.

The acolytes grabbed the girl’s arms and were about to hand her some retribution for her deed when tehy were distracted by something miraculous!

Looking to the pool all present gazed as the cloudy water began to clear around the fish. This circle of pristine wtaer radiated out from the fish dissolving all that was foul within this sacred pool. The Pool of Jahnda was returned to its glory and a single fish, a koalindl, swam within its life giving water!

Ealaynya rejuvenated the temple and its acolytes. The cleansing of the pool was the beginning of the girl’s life amongst by the acolytes, and the villagers had become their new congregation. Ealaynya began to have new visions and share them with the temple.

Through her visions they came to realize they were to unify the faith of the gods of light. They renamed their order the Celestial Watch.

They began to preach to the people and aid those in need. Small crusades lead them into the wilds to perform benevolent actions as they used to ages before the gods were silenced.

Seasons passed and eventually Ealaynya grew into a beautiful woman and the spiritual leader of the Celestial Watch. She became the Seeress Ealaynya Ithis, a beacon of faith, Shepherd of the Celestial Watch.

But she was destined to become more than simply a shepherd. As gods of old have reappeared Seeress Ealaynya has continued to see her visions and prophecies come true. She reassured those that expressed fear of grief over the Prime Healer’s absence that all is part of a grand plan.

“It is not our place to question the widowm of fate, nor that of the Prime Healer. The darkest of night is when the light is most welcome!”

If there was any question about her faith in a grand plan it was dismissed on the day the Temple of Life disappeared!

In the blink of an eye, all who were within the holy temple, save Seeress Ealaynya, now found themselves outside, watching awestruck as it increased its rotation speed and disappeared. There at the edge of the Pool of Jahnda they camped, in prayer and meditation waiting.

A day later, the Temple of Life reappeared with the same ease with which it had left. When its rotation speed slowed, the portal reappeared to allow entry and exit from the floating temple. But no priest, priestess, nor acolyte would enter. They knew they were witness to something of legend, something truly miraculous! They awaited a sign from their Holy Seeress that they could once again, enter the site.

Seeress Ealaynya Ithis emerged from the temple washed in light! She consoled those distraught, and praised all for their faith, stating that she had touched The Holy, and been within the presence of The Prime Healer!

She was blessed, and now so was all of Norrath, for Rodcet Nife’s Prophet walks amongst us!

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Nostalgia met up last night in EQ2 for some good old fashioned Blackburrow hunting. I’ve been feeling very under the weather the past two days, so I wasn’t exactly much help, in fact barely even made it over to play having spent most of the afternoon sleeping. I really hate feeling like I’ve disappointed anyone though, so when Mayadhros gave me a few nudges (I was in EQ1 at the time just hanging out) I decided I should log over to EQ2 and play for a bit. It started out with just three of us, Dunnos (our trusty mystic), Mayadhros (the paladin with a heart of gold), and Minxe, my swashbuckler. It quickly grew though as we added Kasul (the dinner cooking assassin), Said (A conjuror with no hair as a high elf I’m pretty sure.. that just feels wrong), and Bryzon (Our bruiser who loved feigning around) logged in. We didn’t grab any quests for the zone aside from the ones that dropped (there’s the gnoll language quest, as well as a key quest and a few other things) but we did run around hunting named and smushing whatever happened our way.

It was mostly to get a feel for playing with one another, and I had a lot of fun. Hopefully everyone else did as well. Even though we were mentored to 15 (which ended up being 17 very quickly) everyone still learned aa and experience which is one of the best things about the EQ2 mentor system. There’s no worries of out leveling anyone because you can always go back and mentor them. You can always go see old world content that you missed, and there’s so much to do.

Before I relogged to my 74 templar to help out - things were hard. The trio we started with couldn’t handle the blue ^^^ heroic named because we had a white ^^^ add that was a little too much for us. Pulling was still dangerous. It was fun. I had not been in blackburrow for quite some time and it was completely empty. I remember when that zone used to be so popular and it’s actually quite small, you’d end up bumping into all sorts of people just maneuvering around.

There are some book quests that drop randomly from mobs that I’d hoped to pick up but alas none dropped while I was there. I’ll be taking Minxes back to Timerous Deep to finish up some chains there and catch her back up to Dunnos level wise. So far the swashbuckler has been a lot of fun to play, and I’m hoping I can actually stick with her. We’ll see how it goes. The coercer is still there too, I need to get her another level and get going on that epic so I can actually complete it one day (maybe).

Last night was our weekly meeting of Nostalgia, and though we had a booming show up the week before with almost two full groups - this week we were reduced down to just barely 7 people. It happens, unfortunately. People get busy, life happens, they decide they don’t want to play any more (even though we’ve got the lightest schedule invented) that’s just the way it works out. It could have been disappointing were it not for the fantastic attitude of those who did show up. I of course have a pet peeve with not knowing when someone is going to show up. I understand things often happen that are beyond our control, but when a group of people rely on you - let them know some how you won’t be there, so they’re not waiting all night wondering. I have so much appreciation for people who managed to let us know they’re going to be missing for the evening. It also seemed to be the night for incidents - Aerrik had to leave early due to a sick wife (hope she’s feeling better), Relm left to help some friends in WoW, Urtog had a family dinner to attend, and I can’t remember what else happened but DESPITE all of that - we still had a blast. Lost Dungeon Of Norrath - butcherblock style, has always been one of my absolute favorites.

Of course, there was the theory that SOMETHING had to go wrong. Last week it was me dragging around Malfi’s corpse right out from under him, and then being agro to the clockwork and wiping the group. This week? It was that half our group were physically stuck in the instance until the completion timer went off. That’s right, attempting to use the door brought about nothing at all. Dying of course moved you out of the instance - but who wants to pay to retrieve a stuck corpse? So we waited it out. Laughing Fearful for our lost comrades. The LDoN’s appeared to give roughly the same experience as they did two weeks ago. A level or so. More for the hard ones vs. the easy which of course makes sense. I only did two of them and sat the third out (had to eat, plus we had 7 people again anyhow so they could make a full group) and got two levels on the necromancer, reaching level 32.

Which, is fantastic. It means I can wander around Blightfire (which is still a hot zone) and attempt some of the quests in the zone without having to worry about leveling past my 35 level cap for this week.

Last night I also managed to track down my second account, holding Ellithia - a 68 cleric (with her epic) who I had three years ago. I splurged, and spent the $50 to move her to my main account (no need to box, I have station access and don’t want two accounts) exceptionally happy. I haven’t tried looking for a group (yet) but I’m hoping I can drag Kragnn (necromancer) or Kuron (warrior) around for some experience. I doubt there’s really anything I can solo. I tried to wander around Goru’Kar Mesa (a zone off of Blightfire) last night in an attempt at obtaining artifact pieces for a quest - but it was slow going without invis and the guards around the humble town I was wandering across hated me, badly.

There’s nothing quite so embarrassing as getting beaten down by a small swarm (2-3) of gray guards.

Next week we are off to Mistmoore Castle - it should be a blast. We could still REALLY use a second tank, a rogue, and an enchanter. If anyone’s interested, please check out our forums here and let us know you’d like to join. If you’re afraid about being behind (Our levels this week should range from 30-35) I will personally help you get to that level by Friday — if you’ve got the time and are dedicated to playing with us. Please don’t let the level 35 current level range deter you if that’s all it is. Experience really is quite fast still and we really could use a few more players before we hit the more ‘difficult’ levels (which I assume are going to start mid 40’s low 50’s.. but I could be wrong).

Since I have two clerics now, and haven’t played Ishbel in Nostalgia at all - but also have a 31 druid who’s a lot of fun, I’m thinking of deleting Ishbel. Not just for the sake of deletion of course, but I really don’t need / want two clerics. I have a 31 druid who’s in range for Lackey / Nostalgia purposes, and I also have a 40 shaman should the need ever arise. I’m at 10/10 characters, and I wouldn’t mind having the freedom to make someone new if I wanted. I’ll contemplate it a little more today first before making the decision I suppose.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I spent most of it flip flopping between EQ1 and EQ2, which I suppose is quite usual for me. I started out in EQ2. Invited a few new members to Nostalgia, and the guild dinged level 5 opening up our first bit of city merchant goodies. It was easy enough to get, since Stargrace (the 80 provisioner) gets 1.5k status for every writ she does, and the provisioner rush orders fly by. Plus since we’re such a low level, it only took four writs to get us a level and a half. At least now people can see our guild tag when they look at us. I also managed to ding 79 on the coercer, and finished the three factions she needs in order to quest for her Jarsath Wastes hammer. I remember doing this hammer on my rogue in EQ1. I had to work faction, a lot of faction. You turn in whips from local sarnak to the skeletons, and then once you’re done working up your faction it’s a simple little quest to complete it. I remember being so proud when I’d finally finished. One of the raid ‘requirements’ was to have a viable means of getting home again once you were done for the evening. Since the aa that sends you home was not out yet, that meant gate potions, or whatever else you could find that could port you. When Kuron, Tipa, and myself headed to Chardok to check on the royalties the hammer came in handy for me to get out without having to walk through the entire zone (again, and possibly dying to traps).

Next goal is of course to get the coercer to 80. Finish her Thuuga item, and start her epic. I also did the evil aligned quests that came out with GU45. Running around Timerous Deep spreading plague and blight made me feel right at home. A new house item (a book) and a fancy back scratcher (that coats you with flies when you wear it) were my rewards. Of course just as soon as I get settled in EQ2, I feel an incredible urge to wander back over to EQ1.

Lackey was on with his magician and we quickly teamed up, me playing my cleric. He was already in Upper Guk, and I headed that way. In typical Stargrace fashion I forgot how to get there. The PoK map may say Guktan, but the stone says Grobb. Either way, that’s where I was headed. We made our way down to the spawn area of ‘an ancient croc’.

Illia’s Everquest Beastiary says this about the mob: ”

The Ancient Croc is probably second only to the Shin Lord in terms of popularity. The Ancient Crocodile can be found in the very back of Guk, near the two watery enterances to Lower Guk.

He hits for 72 Max, but has relatively low HP for something which hits that hard.”

I had to laugh. The item he drops that was most sought after way back when are his gatorscale sleeves. They have +4 int, 15hp, and enchantment I. which means they reduce the cast time of long beneficial spells. The next comment below the explanation of the mob was even more endearing to me:

“Could a 34 pally farm this place and get some ok loot?”

Of course, it was posted back in 2003. Before Crescent Reach made its way into game and gave lowbies a new area with new loot. Above is what gear looks like ‘now’ in the newer zones. They actually have stats. A lot of stats. It dropped off of some random mob in Blightfire Moors.

Ah how things have changed. It’s nice to say ‘I won’t use any of that stuff, I don’t NEED any of that stuff’ but lets be honest here. It’s pretty. It’s shiny. We wants it. It’s natural to want to gear your character up to the best of your ability. We’re not talking twinking it out by means of bazaar, but quested items, loots and drops you can obtain yourself. We want what we can work for, and feel proud about.

We camped that croc spot last night for an hour and a half - spawned the ancient once. The sleeves dropped, and Lackey was all excited about it, until he saw his sleeves he was currently wearing (which is DE cultural armor) vs. the ones the croc dropped. His have 20 health/mana/end and +3-5 to all stats, plus a few saves. Hard to compare some of the old world drops with the new world items.

Part of me almost wishes devs took the time to revamp every single old world drop so that it could compete with the new world zones - so that they’re not constantly barren where no one has any interest in hanging out (Nostalgia the Guild being the exception to that). On the other hand, it’s a huge exciting thing to be able to go back and see these old items that used to be “so uber” back in the day. Brings back a whole lot of memories, that’s for sure.

Tonight is our weekly meeting of Nostalgia, and I’m looking forward to it. Fingers are crossed that I’ll get the chance to group with my favorite warrior and my favorite ranger (not to mention my favorite shaman, druid, wizard, heck wait everyone is my favorite), but if Tipa’s on tank duty it probably won’t work out that way. I’m also secretly hoping I may get to play my cleric (she’s fast approaching levels where I won’t be able to solo / duo quite so easily for my experience, and I’ve managed to keep her up with Nostalgia thus far for levels ‘just in case’) but the necromancer is always a lot of fun too. We’ll see how it goes, no doubt I’ll write about that tomorrow morning. We’re doing our Butcherblock LDoN’s in an effort to slow down the leveling and earn some more points. Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

Ok, number one - apparently my site is acting as a read-me only type thing to five people. I have no idea why, no idea how to figure it out either. At first it was just one person with the issue (Rao) but now it’s Rao, Malfi, Lader, and I forget who else. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions on why these very specific people would be unable to leave comments, or click on any links on my site, it’d be greatly appreciated. I’m not good with figuring out that sort of stuff.

Edit: I’ve updated wordpress to the latest version, and updated the wordpress theme I was using as well - if there’s any change for those of you not able to comment in the past, please let me know!

In other news. Nostalgia has made it’s way over to the Najena server in EQ2. That’s right, the guild has been formed and last night we recruited our first 14 players. I was impressed, I didn’t think we’d have so many so soon. I know there are still a few more people to add to the guild as well, like Mayadhros, Said, and Said’s wife, as well as Kanad who should be joining us this weekend. It was a nice relaxing night of everyone getting to know one another, and doing the beginner quests for whatever starter city they came from (or moving onto other starter cities for the more experienced). I plan to uphold the ‘no specific day a week to play’ method with the EQ2 guild, and just have people play when ever they feel like it (and when they have the time) and for day one at least that worked out fairly well. Tipa came over with her new Arasai assassin, and I think, or at least hope, that people will have fun.

The guild also managed to ding level 2. It’ll be a slow steady climb to get any where but I’m confident that in time we can do it. Especially once we start doing heritage quests.

If anyone reading this is interested in joining up with the Nostalgia guild on the Najena server (or with Nostalgia The Guild on the Luclin server in EQ1) we certainly have room for more. Feel free to check out the forums here and say hello. We’re still looking for an enchanter, and a rogue, and I think a second tank on the EQ1 server. On the EQ2 server we’re not in dire need of anything in specific. Our guild roster can be found by searching on EQ2players for Nostalgia (switch the search to guild and not players). I’ll link it once EQ2 is done their maintenance and I can get the site working again.

I played my swashbuckler last night, who managed to get to level 14 with Dunnos (my faithful shaman) and Scudbucket (necromancer, go figure) both also managed to get a few levels and eat up those aa points in Timerous Deep. The quests were fun, even if we sped through the first bit and left Dunnos wondering what was going on as he’d never done the quests before. I still had fun. It was even more fun to watch everyone else in guild (we had 11 people on last night) eat up levels. It was nice to see everyone enjoying themselves. Or at least, I hope they did. It actually felt refreshing, is how it felt.

Today I’m hoping to get my coercer to 79, she’s 20% away and it shouldn’t take long (ideally). I had to take a break from it yesterday and work my mining up 100 points, seeing as that was my next Danak faction quest. I did manage to find five rares though as I worked on it, so I suppose I can’t complain too much. Other then that, just your typical day in EQ2.

Tomorrow night is Nostalgia, and I am so looking forward to it. I miss playing my healer though. It’s LDoN night and that’s always a lot of fun no matter what. We’re doing Butcherblock LDoN’s which are some of my favorite.

Oh, I almost forgot. Last night randomly I got a tell asking if I was the ‘famous’ Stargrace (I was on Silhouette, the coercer) and after a few minutes found out it was Crookshanks who was saying hello, from the Najena server. We had a pleasant conversation, and promised to keep in touch. Thanks again for the offer of help if you’re reading this today Crook! It was nice meeting you! I’m certainly not famous though, just another blogger out there in the great big sea.

Screen shot is of my 78 coercer Silhouette floating down to the Howling Stones area in Jarsath Wastes. When dark elves were first given hover I couldn’t figure out why, and thought it was slightly unfair that we’d suddenly learned how to glide down as though we had wings. Now it’s hard to play without it because I’m so used to thinking I’m the off spring of a fae or arasai. How cute, there’s even a little scorpion below - I’m obviously doing the repeatable faction quests, which I spent most of the night doing.

GU45 went off without a hitch - at least on Najena. I spent hours re-organizing my banks and putting everything “just so”. I dumped all my money into shared (bleh, I had more then 187p last I checked, I’ll have to earn more!) and made sure all my ‘mains’ had extra strong boxes to fill in the blanks.

The changes to coercers are nice. I dislike the change to the cure button for priests though. Why? Well, healing (for me) is sort of boring. The one way I could ‘prove’ that I was a competent healer though - was to be on top of cures. Now you have a single spell that removes ALL detrimental effects (one of each) with an instant recast and a .8 second cast time. It takes away the whole thrill (to me personally) of “oh no there’s a dot, we have to cure it and we have to cure it NOW” - and I’ve heard a few other healers mention the same thing. Am I glad we’re short three hotbar slots now? Well I don’t really care too much about those. I don’t think it was worth simplifying the spell. I understand a lot will disagree, but healing was something I didn’t need to be more simple.

I adore knowing where gray quests are, on the other hand. Fantastic change and it’s going to be fun. I had every intention of knocking out some gray quests last night to see how the aa works without mentoring - but got swept up with playing in Jarsath Wastes instead. I did level the coercer from 77->78 and managed to get 40% into the level while I chattered with Nostalgia. Last night was their Paludal Cavern run (how I love that zone).

Speaking of Nostalgia. We’ve basically decided to start up an EQ2 branch of the guild - with a slightly different twist then our EQ1 branch. In EQ1 we are very structured, there are very specific things we want to do, we meet at a specific time. It’s needed, in a game like that. There’s no mentor system, we have to stay within range in order to do anything together.

However, EQ2 is not bound by these, mainly due to the mentor system. I personally feel that it’s important in any mmo, to have a strong community. A lot of people end up leaving simply because the community was not for them. If you can start playing a game, with a group of friends already there — even if you don’t get to group with them all the time, but still get to talk, ask question, and generally know they’re around, it makes a huge difference.

Welcome Nostalgia the guild 2.0

We won’t be assigning (or at least I won’t be) a weekly day to play - but we will be hosting events such as dungeon crawls (instance runs) heritage quest nights, maybe city writ nights, old world raids in time (and with enough interest) and what not, on pre planned days so that everyone knows about it first. The guild has yet to technically be formed, I’m waiting for 6 people to be on at the same time and all together in Timerous Deep so it can be put together. Not an easy task when everyone has their own play times, which is one of the things that actually makes Nostalgia work. There’s typically always someone around (except the wee hours of the morning) we have people from all over.

Tipa and myself both agreed there’s no reason why this guild, or the idea of Nostalgia, can’t span across multiple games. We’ve met some wonderful people and none of us started together on one server. Why not present that opportunity to people (if they want it, no pressure of course) to take advantage of. Again, it’s not going to run as the EQ1 Nostalgia guild runs, but it will give people the opportunity to have a semi static group of folks around with planned events and things to do. People who have forums and vent, who are eager to talk and experience everything Norrath and Norrath 2.0 have to offer. In doing this, and the method we’ve been doing it, I think we’re also picking up a fairly good crowd of people. It’s not exactly random. People hear about us through our writing (we have quite a few bloggers) and word of mouth. We’re not just randomly recruiting people. There’s bound to be a bad apple here and there (they let me in, after all) but over all I feel fairly confident and pleased with the folks we’ve met up to this date. Which is surprising, as I’m typically a very anti social person. Not meaning to offend anyone, it’s simply the way I’ve learned to play my games.

Anyhow. Yesterday was a lot of fun. Between the new GU changes, and meeting new people through Nostalgia I couldn’t have asked for a better gaming day. I haven’t checked out the new quests added with the GU yet, but I hear there are house item rewards, and so you know it won’t be long before I meander my way over to the nearest quest npc to see what they’re handing out and what it’s all about.