Yesterday was by far one of the most perfect gaming days - and I didn’t really do that much. It was great though. Spent in the company of amazing friends and good groups, with only a few deaths. The very early morning portion of it was spent in EQ1. I headed to Dulak Harbor with my 49 beastlord Nala (yes, I actually have two beastlords, I have one who is level 17 still) and my 51 druid, Qutey. Nala hit 50, Qutey hit 52, and got an aa. The kills are still relatively slow, neither character is wearing the best gear, and I’m still working up Nala’s skills since she was leveled fairly quickly. I invis’d my way up to the Oceancrasher and just sat Qutey there while Nala pulled.

Which is one thing I miss in EQ2 might I add. In EQ1 dungeon crawls are more like camps. You find a camp, and your group parks there while someone pulls. Bard or tank or whoever. You sit there for hours, camping your area. Someone zones in and ‘camp check’ is a typical thing, still. In EQ2, I don’t think I’ve ever even heard someone ask for a camp check, unless it was for some particular mob used in a quest and even then it’s rare anyone asks. It’s been phased out, and I miss it. Groups are constantly on the move - granted a lot of this is due to the questing-to-level method of gaining experience. Always on the go.

After that it was time to help out some friends in EQ2, a conjurer and necromancer with their fabled epics. It had been a very long time since I played Petites (templar) to any great extent and I missed it. She was 8% to ding, and I asked if I could tag along on her even though she’d be quite small for the two zones we were headed to (Sebilis and Chardok).

We actually did fantastic, no deaths. The one problem? At level 75 (she dinged almost immediately) you can only cure up to level 83. The mobs we were fighting were level 84-85. So while I could heal just fine, I couldn’t cure the nasty fears, or dots that pummled us. We did the entire zone this way except for one final named at the doors to VS, who I relogged to the druid for. CoTH (call of the hero) her down to the group and we took them out too. The named dropped a very pretty pair of bracers for Goudia that extend the length of her songs by 10%. Couldn’t complain at all! Once we were done getting the updates people needed in Sebilis, it was time for Chardok. Everything went smooth there and Petites managed to wiggle 50% experience out of the ordeal. Even though I couldn’t cure the dots none of the mobs in Chardok fear so we had no issues.

Finally, after all that, I went to play with Kasul some who was inching up on level 65. That’s a big level in EQ2. It’s the level you can start doing Kylong Plains (RoK) content. It’s also the level a lot more instances become available to you such as the ones in Bonemire (there are three at least) and the ones in Loping plains, as well as Obelisk of Blight. It’s also the level you can start grouping with level 80’s.

The experience in Barren Sky was slow, and I was feeling restless, so eventually after some time I suggested we head to New Tunaria with my coercer. Charmed a vampire and we were on our way. LOTS of chest drops and Kasul got his level.

I died, a few times. It comes with the charming mobs territory though and I’m quite used to it. Thankfully this time I didn’t get Kasul killed.

Today, hopefully some instance runs, we’ll see! I hope everyone else has had an amazing weekend.

It figures, that once I decide to go back to the Friday night Nostalgia group, others decide not to show up. Not that it’s any fault of their own, no doubt there were real life adventures that kept them away. It’s just my sort of luck, that’s all. We were missing a wizard, a shaman, and a Gnewton who had mentioned ahead of time he’d be gone (hope those drinks were great!). So it was that 7 of us brave adventurers wandered the road to Nagafen’s Lair. We had a few not so nice pulls. Well, more then a few. It’s difficult to get down when your entire raid force consists of a magician (who used translocate and gate to split mobs for us), ranger, two clerics, two warriors, and a druid. In one of those pulls we got Nagafen down to 20% or maybe even slightly below, but we were missing our uber dps ranger, and the healers slowly ran out of mana and were eaten like some sort of truffle delicacy.

We prepared to work on another pull when it happened.

As though my luck could not have gone any worse. My computer decided it wanted to randomly shut off, and not turm on again.

I hate computers.

I quickly started taking it apart to try to decipher what the issue was, and around 1am with a case of old parts, I logged back into game. Of course, no one was around so I don’t have the faintest idea if we won or not. I think we may have, I tried to peek into the room Nagafen stays in and saw no dragon. However, having never seen that room before in my life I’m not exactly sure where Nagafen would be in there, even if they were up. Hopefully Nostalgia was victorious, and it ended well.

In EQ2, earlier in the day saw Kasul reach level 63. I boxed a tank and my templar (who is also fairly close to level 75, but I just can’t bring her to solo it) and did Nest in Barren Sky, which Kasul had never been to before. We also did Vaults, in the same zone. Alas no class hat dropped which I had been looking forward to. Silhouette also managed to climb to level 71 carpenter, this weekend is double exp weekend so take advantage (not that I did last week). I believe it’s the last one with the living legacy promotion, so now is the time.

It was well past time. Every so often (typically when I get low on cash) I decide that it’s time to sell most of my rares and rebuild the section of rares in by shared bank. I love the way shared bank is combined now between not only accounts, but good and evil. Especially coin, too. Anyhow. The image above is all my rares that I’ve been stock piling for the past little while. I have two more boxes filled with transmuted dusts and shards and infusions, which I’ll keep.

I decided everything would go - almost. I kept the pelts, and roots, and hard metals for my lowbie armorer and tailor. I kept the T8 rares since I’m using them for furniture a lot, and I kept the T5 items for crafting epics since they use those and I don’t want to harvest them again. Hmm. It’s beginning to look like I didn’t sell anything at all but instead kept it. Hehe. Seriously though, I did sell a lot of them. I also stocked up on food and drink to sell, and odd bits here and there. A few shinies that I didn’t need.

In EQ2 I never find that I NEED money. The most I’ve ever had at one time is 200p and I’ve known people with well over 1,000. There’s rarely anything I NEED to buy, master spells being an exception when they actually drop down into an affordable price range. Gear comes from quests instances and raids. Masters too if I’m lucky. I actually end up spending money on alts for the most part and that’s just due to needing the gear RIGHT NOW instead of going out and harvesting for it.

Tonight is Nostalgia on Luclin (EQ1) and I’m looking forward to it. We’ll be smushing some dragons, so long as they’re up. I’ll have to log in a bit early and make sure my spells are all saved and set up the way they should be. It’s been quite some time. I also have no idea if I’m playing the druid or the cleric yet, and I know the druid needs her level 51 spells. I may team the beastlord and druid up to get them a little into their level, and get the druid working on some aa (or get her closer to 52) or the beastlord and the cleric, same idea. The beastlord probably needs a spell or two too, and I’d like to get them a little further into 48. Idealy I’d have them around 51 too, but Dulak is getting old and the killings are starting to slow down some. I haven’t decided where I’ll be headed next.

Not too much longer now! Yesterday finally saw me ding level 70 carpenter on Silhouette. Which means not only did I get to start all the amazing T8 recipes, but I also got to scribe 6 new books from faction merchants, two for Rilis, Danak, and Bathezid Watch. Needless to say I had a LOT of items to make. It was great! I’m quite happy to have made it so far with this crafter, considering I’ve had so many carpenters in the past who for some reason just didn’t make it. I spent a portion of yesterday designing a room in Shadowgeist’ house which I’m slowly working on, and dumping items into Kasul’s house, who’s kindly let me get rid of all my junk that I have no use for. Maybe he can come up with something to do with it all.

The faction furniture is really nice, some of the wall hangings even let you have a small reduction in the coin cost for your home. Really can’t complain about that at all. I’m eager to get level 80, so that I can work on the crafter epic and get that run speed clicky. Not to mention the cloak. Then it’s time to level up the next crafter, which will probably be the neglected woodworker who has been at level 74 for quite some time now. I do have the 80 sage who needs her epic, but because she’s only a level 60 adventurer she hasn’t done the faction she needs for Bathezid Watch in order to begin with. I dislike the crafter writs, they don’t reward you nearly enough for the effort you put into it. Those who can adventure for their faction are far better off.

Though I do admire the fact that there’s an alternative means to obtaining your faction if for some reason you are not an adventurer. After leveling so many characters to 80 I’m almost but not quite inclined to get my faction that way too.

Tomorrow is EQ1 night with Nostalgia on Luclin, it should be a lot of fun. A few more members have joined up over the past little while and I’m looking forward to playing with everyone.

The newest GU should be out before too long, I have mixed feelings on it. Probably means I should finish getting the rest of those notes from the current storm quests before they’re removed or changed. It’s hard when I have so many alts! I want to get everything for all of them and that’s just not a viable solution.

Hope everyone has a fantastic day!

I have to admit, I’m proud of my guild. We’re certainly not the largest, with only a handful of active members, and we’re certainly not the best, most of us still leveling up. I’m proud of them every day though and I think that’s important. Last night saw us hit guild level 20 which was a major accomplishment for Nostalgia 2.0. It opened up more bank slots, and unlocked more items at the city merchants. It brings us closer to 30, which is fantastic, so of course I’m proud of everyone in it.

It’s hard to believe that Nostalgia the Guild (EQ1 branch) and Nostalgia, started out in April as an idea in the comments section of Tipa’s blog. It took off from there though. The Friday and Tuesday groups still gather on Luclin in EQ1 for their meetings, and that guild is just booming. I’ve personally met so many wonderful people from both branches of the guild. It’s been nothing short of amazing.

I decided last night that I would not attend raids, for one main reason. They’re just simply too late for me. The raids didn’t even begin until 9:30pm my time, and end around 11-12:30 depending on the raid. I’m up fairly early each morning (between 5:30 and 6am depending on when the cat decides I should be up) and so after a lot of contemplation I decided to sit this expansion out so to speak. When the new one comes out in November, then I’ll decide whether or not I want to progress in that method again. For now I’m content with my fabled epics and working on tradeskillers.

Speaking of which, today I should be able to hit 70 carpenter finally on Silhouette. Last night I downed a few experience potions that I’d been stock piling (I had 15 of them) remembering that the different potions stack (ie: 55% bonus stacks with 28% bonus and so on). I hit level 68 which was dissapointing because I only got two new recipes. However at level 70 I’ll get all those new faction recipes that I’ve had stashed away now. Since my carpenter is an adventurer she won’t have to grind it the long difficult way - except for Bathezid Watch, which leaves you just short of 30,000 faction. I’m eager to be on T8 as far as carpenter work goes. It means that I can make the REALLY nice items, and I can get started again on decorating. I want to overhaul each house I own, as well as make some items for Kasul’s house (even though I dare say I’ve been over doing his lately and just stuffing junk everywhere) as well as Shadowgeist’ house which I have a few special ideas for. It should be a blast!

It was high time Goudia started her mythical. Especially since tonight is Leviathan (or it’s supposed to be, we’ll see how that goes). I believe that’s the first kill for the mythical for troubadors. I haven’t looked it up in a few days so I could be wrong. Anyhow, I headed off to barren sky to talk to some bird-chick in the middle of a chain in the middle of no where. Not such a big deal walking along the chain since it’s quite wide, but if you see at the top of the screen shot the way the chain attaches to the under side of the island? Well, I had to jump from the main land onto that little chain without a clear view of where I was jumping to.

I am no good at the jumping game in EQ2. If there’s a crack, even if it’s 10 paces away chances are I’ll some how manage to trip and fall into it. That raid zone in Pillars of Flame that sends you to a shimmering citadel look alike, it has lots of cracks in the ground that you’re expected to jump over or plummet to your death. It’s great to fall out the bottom of an island, I should know, I did it, numerous times.

So anyhow I managed to jump onto the chain, and wander across and found out what I need to do next.

Spent a little time yesterday with Kasul in Barren Sky, helping him work through some quests. I do believe I got us killed a time or two though, hard to remember, my memory always gets all blurry whenever I induce a death, hehe. He managed to ding 61, though it had very little to do with my help. I also spent some money (ok, a lot of money) upgrading things on Goudia. Turns out she was missing a few adept3’s that I deemed ‘unworthy’ when I wasn’t raiding. Made those with petites (80 jeweler) and bought a few pieces of gear. I also made some +int adornments for my ears, +str for wrists, a new adornment for my weapon (vampiric I believe) and +health for my rings. Added +power to my head piece. It’s not much, but it’s a start. I had a friend create an aa respec mirror for me, and saved a DPS and an AOE avoidance profile. Turns out that bladedance is only used for the trakanon fight these days (as opposed to last tier, where BD was used fairly constantly) and I’ll be running around with the dps spec for the most part. I also need to find an adornment for my off hand weapon. I’ve been parsing lately to see how I do, if my trooper scale boots go off I can parse 1.4k with auto attack and no special moves (by myself in a group) while I’m duel wielding. However with a shield I was only parsing 900 (with auto attack). I do need a shield for named fights where I’m offering protection to the MT as it absorbs one attack for them - but for trash and what not the dps / duel wield seems to work just fine.

I also moved some of my aa around generally, for a better dps spread. Took some points out of the agi line (I believe that’s the one, maybe I’m wrong) and put 5 into the int line, just to get the base attack that will add some dmg. There’s really no need to waste more points in there, as it only raises the rank of the skill very slightly.

Enough of my troubador ranting!

It will be nice to raid tonight. In case it’s not noticeable, I am nervous, of course. I’m really hoping I can get back into the swing of things. I also need to get 5 more aa to finish those off, and eventually I’d like to see Goudia hit 80 crafter (weaponsmith) so that she can finish that epic as well and be my first 80/80/140/400 since she’s a tinkerer. Maybe even before the next expansion comes out.. hehe.

More later!

I should have probably taken advantage of the double experience weekend in EverQuestII, at least for the crafting, but I didn’t. I should have probably spent some time leveling in Vanguard, but I didn’t do that either. Instead I boxed in EverQuest, and I hung out with some friends, and had a lot of fun. Afterwards of course I was reminded about all of the stuff I ’should’ have done - that’s always the way it works, right?

I’d been to MPG a few times (muramite proving grounds) in the past, years ago now I suppose. The zone was packed. There were people camping everywhere. Now though they’ve moved to greener pastures. Fistinyereyes boxed his beastlord, cleric and enchanter. His cleric is trying to get some levels, and went from 65-67 yesterday. Fistinyereyes himself managed to hit his 757th aa or something like that. I lost track once he hit 700. I took invis, who got an aa and a bit, before we called it a day. She also managed to get herself a +20ac augment, which is really nice.

We were the only ones in the zone, wandering to camp was easy enough with invis and of course the shroud of stealth I’ve got on the rogue. Being an outdated character is interesting to say the least. There were times I’m sure I barely dented the mob even though they were a dark blue con.

I also managed to finish getting Ishbel her shield from Natimbi. I took Invis out to hunt for the last two meats, and MQ’d the book to her (since she had already looted two of the meats herself). Which is good, because I’d hate to show up on Friday night missing gear. Oh, that’s right, I’ve also decided since things have settled down some to partake in the Friday Nostalgia groups again. Not sure if I mentioned that before or not, it’s only 6am right now and I’m not fully awake (when am I ever, eh).

Got tickets to Feist. Looking forward to that. Sarah Brightman is also coming to Ottawa, but the tickets are well out of my price range. Hope everyone else had a fantastic weekend.

I wasn’t really in a gaming mood tonight - yes, I know, did hell freeze over (would be nice to get out of this heat that’s for sure). I spent the afternoon in EQ1 for the most part. My beastlord reached level 48, and the druid finally hit level 51. Actually she was 2% from 51 and died, but a kind cleric rez’d me for no charge and I wandered off for one more kill to ding 51. Very pleased with that progress. Afterward I headed to MPG (Muramite proving Grounds.. though I probably spelled that wrong) and exp’d some with an old friend of mine.

Anyhow, as I was saying. Tonight I wasn’t exactly in the mood to game, so I settled down for a few hours of DAZ Studio’s, which I’m still learning. There are two important things I need to learn how to do. Well, three I suppose. One would be applying textures. Another would be applying backgrounds, and the third would be lighting which I can’t seem to figure out for my life. Me and computers just simply do not get along. The 300 paged manual that comes with DAZ could probably help if I had any idea where to start. I’ll have to look up some other tutorials for it no doubt.

The screen shot above can be seen in far better quality (and size) here. Just click on the image if it doesn’t bring you to the full view right away. I still have no outfits to render for my characters, but the face shots are coming along nicely. I tried to frame this one after Stargrace in EQ2, who is a wood elf. It didn’t turn out too badly. Thinking of using one of these images I create to make a signature. We’ll see how that goes. I’d really like a dark elf texture, and I do have one but it’s not for V4.2 which means it’s not really going to work for me. I suppose I could colour it by hand in photoshop, but we’ll just have to see. Some times, it’s just nice to take a break.

Ever wonder where everyone hangs out now in EQ1? Noticing that PoK is a little more empty then usual after your return? Well the above image would be the reason. It’s the picture of the guild lobby on the luclin server, busy as always. It’s great to see so many people active in the game. Since things have slowed down (slightly) for me, I’ve decided it was time to rejoin the Nostalgia crew in EQ1 on their Friday night adventures. Since I’ve been gone they’ve been growing by leaps and bounds, and doing some raiding to boot.

I still currently have both of my EQ1 accounts active, so I decided to take the 50 druid and 45 beastlord to Dulak harbor for a little grind sesson. Of course, I got a head of myself and before I’d even made it to a camp Qutey and Nala were little smeared bits of Nostalgians on the ground. Woops.

So I loged the druid out (slightly frustrated, since I spent a lot of time buffing them) and brought out the 70 cleric instead. Since the beastlord has some levels of catching up to do, I simply had the healer follow around and dot the mobs - it worked out far better. My very first kill dropped a defiant plate breastplate which I’ll ship over to my 48 shadowknight, and though I didn’t see another piece for the evening I still had a lot of fun. By the time I called it a night the beastlord had reached level 47, which means a new pet. Her skills started to rise a good bit as well, sorely neglected in my power leveling sessons of the past.

Before this Friday’s Nostalgia meeting I’d like to get Ishbel (that’s the cleric) a shield from a quest in Natimbi, I need two more pieces of turtle meat to drop though. That’s today’s project (in between some real life stuff). If anyone is looking to talk, remember you can add me to Xfire (check it out if you haven’t yet) and it lets you talk in game, no matter the game as well as take video and screen shots.

Other then that, I hope everyone has had a fantastic weekend, no matter the realm you’re gaming in!

The harbor of Khal is an amazing sight. Especially when people’s boats are all parked in various places along the docks (as pictured above). Last night I dipped into Vanguard for a short while with Gozad and Growlius. Not on mains this time though - for once we all played lowbies. I was on my 18 psionicist, Growlius his 22 disciple, and Gozad on his 22 necromancer.

We all got the diplomacy necklace we needed to work towards our mount, and headed to Qalia to work on hunter’s league quests. We did not have a tank, but things went fairly smooth anyhow.

Shoulders were first, and it was very little effort despite the more interesting pulls we had from time to time.

Psionicists work slightly different then enchanters in EQ1/EQ2 in that they can only mez one mob at a time (or at least, that’s all I can do right now at level 19) but we can also charm one mob, and AOE stun for 8 seconds. When we mez (I’ve mentioned this before) we actually phase the mob right out of exhistence - and in order for anyone to actually attack the mob again, we have another spell that phases them back in. That’s right, no more breaking mez - at all.

One of my favorite tactics is making sure I cast my duplicate spell (it taunts the mob and replicates it, but basically does 0 dmg) before I unphase it. That way when I do unphase, the mob is already attacking the duplicate of itself, and I have a chance to snare it and nuke it a few times before that breaks / wears off.

Psionicists also have a world wide channel attached to one of their spells, it’s called ‘mind’ and it’s great. When you have the buff on you’re auto joined to it. A handy tool to ask others questions you may have about your class.

After we’d completed the shoulder quest I decided to take a break for a bit - being exceptionally worn out after a fairly exciting day. Thanks to Tipa over at Westkarana, I’m now writing for Beckett Massive Online Gamer - about EverQuestII. A writing opportunity came up and she happened to mention my name. Wow how amazing is that? I have my first interview next week, and yes I’m very nervous. These newsstand magazines are actually printed and sold in multiple places, you may have heard of them before for their sports magazines. My first two articles (as long as everything goes well) should come out for the September issue.

I think I’m still stunned over that one.