This just released…

some changes to the guild halls (posted by Rothgar):

Since our unveiling of Guild Halls at Fan Faire we’ve heard lots of feedback, over 60 pages worth! This morning we discussed a lot of this feedback and have decided to make some changes.

1. Zone Art

One of the issues that concerned you was that the Tier 1 guild hall made use of the existing 5-room house. Initially this was added to give us another tier that originally wasn’t in the plan. However, we can certainly understand that the effort and cost involved in obtaining your first guild hall is significant, especially for smaller guilds. Tim “Haohmaru” Heydelaar, our zone art lead, made a huge commitment to guild halls this morning and agreed to building a new 5-room guild hall using the brand new zone geometry and textures that are used in the larger guild halls. He will also be making changes to the Tier 2 guild halls, adding a new atrium and expanding their size slightly over what we showed you at Fan Faire. The Tier 1 and 2 guild halls will still be located inside the city. If you’re concerned about travel, see #3 below.

2. Pricing

For some of the smaller guilds the pricing of entry-level guild halls was a barrier. We’ve decided to leave the pricing of the Tier 3 guild halls alone, but have lowered the price of the Tier 1 and 2 guild hall. Below is the new pricing table.

Tier 1
Purchase: 50p (Lowered from 100p)
Upkeep: 50g, 50k status (Lowered from 1p, 100k status)

Tier 2
Purchase: 250p (Lowered from 500p)
Upkeep: 2.5p, 100k status (Lowered from 5p, 150k status)

Tier 3
Purchase: 1,000p
Upkeep: 10p, 200k status

3. Accessibility

Many people were concerned that guild halls located in other cities would not be very accessible. You will have several methods to get to your guild hall very easily, regardless of its location. First, you’ll be able to purchase a house item from the city status merchant that will allow you to port from your personal house straight to your guild hall. Secondly, we’ve reduced the cost of the “Call to Guild Hall” amenity greatly. It will now only cost 1p, 250k status to purchase instead of 10p, 2 million status. In addition we’ve lowered the recast timer on Call to Guild Hall so you can use it every 15 minutes instead of once per hour.

4. Tradeskill Tables

Another concern was having to purchase amenities for each tradeskill table when you already have them available in your personal home. This made it difficult for small guilds because they’d have to use most of their amenity slots for tradeskill devices. We’ve decided to allow you to place your existing tradeskill tables in the guild hall and have removed them from the amenity list. Now smaller guilds will be able to use those slots for new features like the supply depot and harvester or convenience features like the fuel merchant and writ giver. Keep in mind that this removes 7 amenities so the original count of 40+ amenities at launch is now around 35.

We hope that these changes will have a positive impact and resolve some of the concerns expressed so far. Smaller guilds should have a much easier time getting into a Tier 1 guild hall and now have an easier upgrade path moving into the Tier 2. The amount of upkeep required to maintain a guild hall still greatly depends on the choice of amenities you decide to purchase.

We’re always interested in hearing your feedback so let us know what you think of these changes.

It never fails to happen - once I settle on a main, something comes up that has me playing one of my other level 80 characters. I suppose it’s not that big of a deal, at least I’m playing after all. Right? Last night was no different. I spent most of the evening working on the Thuuga chain of quests for Silhouette. I’ve completed the quest three times already, once for the 80 warden, again for the 80 troubador, and for the 77 templar. Silhouette however, being the huge slacker she is, went without.

The fabled item is really nice though and there’s no excuse not to have it. Before heading off to do that I finished off the Waste Hunter chain of repeatable quests as well. I was hoping for an impressive bit of jewelery like the warden got - but instead my cloth options were forearms and sleeves, both of which I had better of already. Ah well.

I was about to call it a night, since it was already getting close to midnight, when a friend asked if I wanted to tag along on a Protectors Realm run just for fun. I said sure, they were short a healer or two (though I am sure they could have done just fine without me) and off I went. The zone was cleared easily, I didn’t die (thankfully, I always find it embarrassing when I get pummeled by an AoE as a guest on a raid - but maybe that’s just me) and once the final encounter was downed I noticed there was a little bit of loot designated to me. No, not a piece of gear.

It was the first update to my mythical, and I didn’t even know I needed it. I didn’t check ahead of time and had no inclination of ever working on my mythical unless I joined a raid guild. So I examined the little elemental sphere that dropped in my inventory, and ta da, first update done. The next one is Overking, and the final one is the Cinder Queen in Veeshan’s Peek. Since my warden is not even flagged for VP, and it’s rare that anyone really needs a druid, I’m content with this one step, for now.

Since Silhouette is level 80 now, it means I can craft a lot of items for her home. Up until today I’d still only completed the library, and even that is a work in progress since it requires lots of books that I’ve yet to quest for. I decided today I’d decorate the main entrance of her home, and I wanted something a little different then the other homes I’ve decorated.

So I turned the room into a garden area, with a small black indium fence around it.

Flowers and trees surround three fountains, and a little tent to relax under, where someone’s already been camping.

The room has about 100 items in it, which is on target since the library also has 100 items. That’s two rooms complete now out of five - though I may just leave one locked up and empty. I’m planning on turning the room to the left of the entrance into a sales area and maybe a kitchen with dining. We’ll just have to see!

Silhouette, some 2,000+ crafted items later (since eq2players has not updated since she was level 76) finally managed to hit level 80 as a carpenter. Of course as soon as I hit 80 I began working on the crafter epic. Not only so I could located the red shinies that are out there (and any future ones) but also because I wanted the 45% run speed that comes along with the earring. It’s a big deal to me, especially when there’s no way I can afford mounts for all my characters, and I’m reluctant to spend a lot of time using up totems.

A huge thank you to everyone (mostly Albrta and Eyenstein) who made the other 8 items I needed for the epic quest. That makes my fourth crafter to hit level 80, and the third to complete the epic. My 60 necromancer / 80 sage has been procrastinating because I’m reluctant to grind out Bathezid Watch faction for her to be able to do the quest. I may level her, some day. Completing faction the ‘adventuring’ way seems a much safer method.

Once the epic was completed, of course I put the new pretties in my house and I’m sporting the new cloak. Silhouette is my first 80/80 and with any luck she’ll become my first 80/80/140. It’s a big goal for me, since this entire expansion I’ve floundered from character to character.

Shadowgeist, Eyenstein, Albrta, a fury, and an assassin, as well as myself headed to VoES (Vaults of Eternal Sleep) to hunt for some items. Nothing dropped - I’m after the secondary item of course with the proc on it. Forget the full name but it ends in guard. After we cleared that zone (I did get a chest upgrade, but just legendary and nothing to write home about) we headed to Maidens, and cleared that with no issues. The first named of course killed me, it always does. For some reason no matter if I’m in front or behind or at the side, I manage to get hit with tail lash. Not fun. I was hoping that the fabled robe would drop. Alas my luck held true and we got legendary. An assassin master did drop, but just before I got excited for the person in group he mentioned he already had it.

Dang it.

One of these days, something will drop that is an upgrade.

It’s nice to be completing goals again. I want to get Silhouette the rest of her aa, and maybe a few more crafters to 80. Of course I want to help Nostalgia reach level 30. We’re 70% through level 22 currently, Silhouette sitting at 276,678 guild status. Tomorrow’s going to be one of those annoying busy days (not that this weekend wasn’t, I had real life to attend to for the better part of the day of course) and I hope in the mean time that everyone had an amazing weekend.

Just a small post tonight with a couple of milestones finally being reached. First and foremost, Silhouette my carpenter hit level 79. One more to go, which I’ll probably wait to get tomorrow morning. Along with that level I managed to inch over 40,000 faction with the Gorowyn tradeskill folks. Of course just after I obtained that faction +150 at a time, I read a post about how they’re raising rush orders to +300 faction per, and +200 for regular writs. Ah well.

Having 40,000 faction means I can finally make aa mirrors - for myself. No alts since this is not a tradeable item and they have to be comissioned. I also bought the black faction dress (which Silhouette refuses to wear in public, it barely covers any part of her) and I bought the title pictured above of course, which included a house item.

So as of tomorrow that will mean I have the following crafters (not including transmuter which I have one of, and tinkerer which I have two of)

• 80 - Sage
• 80 - Jeweler
• 80 - Provisioner
• 80 - Carpenter
• 74 - Woodworker
• 64 - Weaponsmith
• 64 - Alchemist
• 20 - Tailor
• 20 - Armorer

I know, that means my two lowest ones I’ve been slacking on, and I have a good excuse for it! I’ve had a level 60 tailor before, but she’s on a second account and was deleted when I closed it down. I also had a 40 armorer, but she was on the same second account I closed (not to mention both were on a different server then the one I play on now). So I had to start over (again).

Getting the carpenter is a big milestone for me though, and I’m really happy about it (even though I haven’t quite reached it yet). It also means lots and lots of status went towards the guild today, working almost 50% of the way through Nostalgia’s level 22.

By now it’s all the news, on various blogs and Eq2flames (which I pretty much avoid aside from their class section forums) all of the information about guild halls. Three tiers, the first one being framed after the 5-room homes we can already purchase at guild level 30. Of course these guild halls have extra bonus’ like being able to gate to them with a recall to guild spell (an amenity you purchase later), and npc for various things. The T1 guild hall is going to cost 100p which is not too bad, Nostalgia has saved up over 160p towards a guild hall to begin with. What we lack are the guild levels. You’ll need guild level 30 for the first hall, 50 for the second tier, and 70 for the third. The cost of the first hall may be 100p with a 1p a week upkeep along with 100k personal status a week, but the second hall costs 500p with 5p a week upkeep and 150k personal status.

The third hall is a castle, with 25 rooms, underground docks and some very specific set rooms in it. It will cost 1000p (not that big of a deal to raiding guilds), 10p a week upkeep, and 200,000 personal status rent.

Furniture will NOT affect the rent.

You’ll have a choice (at release, this may get expanded later) of 42 amenities, and here’s a very short list of them:

Call of Guild Hall

Mariner’s Bell (T3 hall only)

Druid NPC to ports

Complete Tradeskill setup including writ givers and merchants

Tradeskill Supply Depot — store materials and fuels for tradeskilling in guild hall

Mender Bot

Intraguild Broker — place items on broker that only guild can buy

1 Raid Strategist Tactical Rally Banner — drop flag at zone to raid (2 hour lifespan)

5 teleporters can be placed in guild hall to teleport

Set race and clothes of all house npcs (hirelings) via. mannequin system

House Broker (flat 20%? not real clear)

Guild Cloak Designer

Creature Conjurer — summon mobs for practice fighting

Tradeskill Table

Courtyard Statue Sentry

Carpet to Sinking Sands

For a better list of goodies and for frequent Fan Faire updates, you can check out this blog here that was put up specifically for the FF.

I had hopes of Nostalgia purchasing a 10 room guild hall (tier2) but I think due to our size the costs would be too much. Not to mention it will be quite some time before we ever hit guild level 50. We’re just barely past level 22 currently.

However, at least there is a guild hall available to us at all. We will be purchasing the T1 one, and starting off with getting the recall to guild hall spell and then working towards purchasing all of the crafting goodies, since I’m pretty sure every Nostalgian crafts. We’ll see what comes next after that.

Last night, Nostalgia braved the undead dragon skeletons and other horrors that lurked in the Plane of Hate. We had a few close calls, but it was a fantastic night. Kanad joined us on his newly de-leveled shaman, and Seja had just obtained the magical number to enter the zone (46) on his enchanter, so we had a few new faces. Which was great, because again we were slightly short and ended up with a few extra spots. Our second tank / zerker was not there nor was our beastlord (aside from my box). Our groups consisted of uber tank Tipa, Callendra, Sisca, and Mantis in one group (I apologize now if I’ve spelled all of your names incorrectly, it’s early and I am horrible with names) in the other group we had Warmungar, Seja, Kanad, Coldheat (who kept having connection issues, poor guy) and myself (I boxed my beastlord and druid for some extra dps).

Since the zone was not a hotzone, and in fact is still categorized as a raid zone (and has a 5 minute cool down before you start regenerate power properly, ew) things were slow going. The big winner of the night was Seja, who managed to get every piece of gear upgrade I believe, and it was really nice to see things dropping that people could actually use for once. He also gained a handful of levels.

Our cap has been raised to level 60, so I have levels to gain again as well. Hopefully I’ll get one or two throughout the course of the week. I’ve been teaming up with Kanad for experience, and have been having fun in more of the old zones, like Griegs End that we went through yesterday. Also not a hot zone, but the experience was not too bad. Qutey is now at 22aa and part way into level 56. Nala is 70% through level 55, and has 21aa. Ellithia, who I de-leveled hit 102aa yesterday in GE with Kanad.

I’m thinking of teaming up the cleric and enchanter with Kanad just to farm aa some place. She really needs the salvage crafting aa, as well as the final rank to her jewel crafting mastery. It’s getting painful failing combines so often. We’ll just have to see how that goes.

Most people I know are at Fan Faire this weekend, alas I could not make it. Perhaps next year! I hope everyone has a lot of fun.

A post that’s not about gaming for once, what’s gone wrong? Well, nothing. I’ve been having fun leveling my baby dirge up in EQ2 (yes, that’s right I’ve gone over to the evil side. Tired of betraying the troubador back and forth I decided to start up a counter part much like I have with the illusionist and coercer). She’s level 32 right now, and I need to make gear for her and some spell upgrades. I also played Guild Wars last night, and blogged about it because I was just too dang excited, which left me with nothing to write about this morning.

Tonight Nostalgia meets up in EQ1, and we’re off to the Plane of Hate. For those truly old school, you’ll remember it as a raid zone. It’s got some raid encounters left in it still, but it’s now a group zone. You can access it by buying a stone from an npc in Neriak and turning it in to the plane of Tranquility off of PoK. Who, I forget. How much it costs, I also forget. It should be a blast though. You can also hand the stone in to your resident guild hall gnome, and he’ll set the guild portal to hate for you. How kind.

I do all of my groceries (weekly) at a place here in Ottawa called Farm Boy. I don’t own a microwave (I know how horrible eh) and I don’t buy anything frozen. I do love cooking, and I love the new foods that are out there and experimenting. So when I saw the above two items at the market, I decided to pick them up. Now, the amusing thing about the small box that contains a ready to eat tuna salad - is that it’s from Thailand. No big deal, but on the back of the can it says that the Tuna is from British Columbia. Thank you for selling us our tuna back! The meal is actually delicious, it’s almost like a tuna version of vegetable soup, minus the soup portion.

The sweet and sour noodles were VERY spicy, and amazing. I added broccoli and chicken to the dish, and it made way too much of course. The rice noodles didn’t exactly turn out as I would have liked. I’ve never cooked them before and it said to soak them for 3 minutes in boiling water which was not nearly enough time and they ended up weird and chewy.

Tonight? Good ‘ol BBQ chicken legs with rice.

I promise I’ll post something about gaming either later tonight, or tomorrow..

Pitney has some issues. Actually, Pitney has a lot of issues. I stumbled across this npc in.. I believe Lakeside County. It’s a quaint little village and wild birds seem to roam around. There’s a field not too far, and it’s been infested with worm. Not just your average worm either, oh no. That would be too easy, lay down a little pest control and you’d be set.

These worms are the people eating sort. They probably chomped on a few of the roaming birds too. I could see a chicken or a small wolf being dinner. Anyhow, Pitney has worm problems to start. So you adventure around taking care of the issue. Looking for materials to lure out the Queen worm. That’s exactly what you want to do after all, right? The little people eating worms are just not enough. Anyhow, you eventually get lead (by Pitney himself) over to the Queen worm, and hopefully don’t get smashed to bits as you take her out. The field is filled with all sorts of other critters, wolves and smaller worms. Having an AoE or two helps take things out fairly fast (or a partner in game to play with, which is my option).

After you take care of the worm incident, Pitney mentions that his prized bird has flown the coop. Or he’s been stolen, or lost, something along those lines. He wants to send YOU (brave adventurer that you are) into the catacombs, to rescue his rare bird.

Oh boy!

So off I went to Ashford Abbey (I love the traveling in guild wars, very easy — but how come when I travel me and my group mate have to disband? Every time it gets more and more annoying, is there a way around this?) I went, to go to the catacombs.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in this little zone. Spiders, and animated skeletons and other little gooey bits of fun hang out there. A lot of the necromancer quest stuff is in there. I’d already been there once to light some ritual candles and again for some other necromancer stuff. I am an elementalist with a secondary profession of necromancer, and my partner in crime (from time to time) a warrior, also with a necromancer secondary profession.

Anyhow. We meandered our way through the catacombs, had a few close calls. Oh, how do you revive if your group member forgot to swap in their revive spell? The only method I could find was to open the map and port back to town. That does not really sound right to me. Eventually, we came to a ritual room, and there in the center, was Pitney’s rare bird.

Smushed. A little pile of legs and feathers on the floor. That’s what the screen shot is showing though I’m standing in front of what’s left of him (or it). Great. So now after all that hard work I had to go back to Pitney and tell him that his rare bird (after already dealing with worms) was dead, used in some sort of necromantic scheme.

That’s right, it was me, I was feeling hungry after all that adventuring..

I think I’m sitting at level four now. Maybe part way through it. I did a few other quests, including lugging a huge honeycomb over a bridge for someone. I had to make sure I moved slowly, so that the bees could keep up. Good thing my skin is almost like plastic (oh that reminds me, I turned off the ambiance setting or whatever it was that caused my skin to glow as though I had just eaten a candle.. much better now).

Still having lots of fun with the game, for once not worried at all about the level grind - and just listening to everyone’s stories. It’s great!

Yesterday I finally completed the warden epic. Glad to have it done? You betcha. One thing I dislike (but also understand) about the epics, is that they all follow almost exactly the same time line. However, doing this also ensures that you have multiple classes working in the same zones and areas so that they can garner interest to help as others work on their own epics. The last three portions of just about every epic match, with the names of the mobs changing slightly and perhaps a rotation between which RoK instanced zone it’s going to use.

I admit now that I didn’t read the story line too well. The first few quests didn’t especially grab me. In fact the only quest where I did read the story line in depth (aside from troubador, because I read that on Tipa’s blog as she worked on hers) was the coercer one that pulled me in (or pulled someone into me, quite literally) from the very first quest.

None the less, all of the epic quests were well done, and players should take enormous pride in completing theirs. Hopefully the level cap stays at 80 at least for one expansion so that people can actually enjoy their epics before they get replaced by the next tier of gear (unlike my soulfire, which was replaced almost right away once I’d gotten it finally).

Silhouette dinged 74-75-76 crafter (thanks to anime) and I made quite a bit of coin selling some master drops. Chelsith last night was especially friendly. Two master chests dropped (though nothing came of any use) with a bruiser master that Shadowgeist sold for 100p and a fury master that the winner will no doubt be able to sell for quite a pretty penny (their main single target nuke). A handful of ornate chests dropped and Arysh got herself an earring upgrade, which was great. Since her epic procs on critical heals, I’m trying to boost that as high as I can. Adornments should help out, a bit.

Hopefully Silhouette will get 80 carpenter before too long, then I can work on her crafting epic. Having the earring that grants run speed would be really nice. After she’s reached the maximum level I need to get Arysh to 80. Then whoever is left (there are a few). It’s always nice to have a plan!