I’m torn on the subject of daily quests. On one hand, sure who doesn’t want a reason to log in every day. The daily missions in EQ2 that reward shards for armor were one such example of this along with the hot zone (meaning the zone has an increased chance to drop loot). On the other hand working towards a goal via daily quests like faction really makes me annoyed, because I don’t want to have to wait day by day in order to purchase a faction item, I want it RIGHT NOW. Or at least 10 hours from now once I’ve grinded the faction out the ‘regular‘ way.

Examples of this are the new daily crafter quests available in Sentinel’s Fate. In order to purchase any of the armor recipes (I’m speaking from a tailor perspective specifically) you need 40,000 faction with the kerra isle folks AND faction with the crafter division of that same island. If you’re an adventurer you’ll be able to gain one of the factions quite easily by completing the chain of adventure quests, but you’re still left with a whole lot of craft faction to work on at the end. The daily quests only give you 2,500 faction a day and you’ll be around 12,000 or so after the chain of crafter quests. That’s a fair amount of dailies to complete before you’re able to purchase the recipes you may want.

It seems that these days every game wants to add a ‘come log in’ factor for players – WoW has had daily quests for quite some time, and now even Aion is jumping into it with their new 1.9 patch that is in the works. It’s certainly not the first time we’ve seen it in EQ2 either, the Isle of Mara craft division has been giving daily (and weekly) craft quests for some time.

I’m a little burned out on EQ2 lately, I’ve been playing quite a bit since the release of Sentinel’s Fate and so my attention has wandered over to other games (like EVE, and Darkfall). If you’re looking to read some of my posts about those games please visit Nomadic Gamer, which is a 2nd web site I started up – and keep in mind that I’m also always looking for volunteer writers for that site. If you’re looking for a place to post your opinion (about games, mind you. They don’t have to be MMO specific) just let me know and I can get you set up. Anyhow, I’ve been logging in to EQ2 to complete my daily quests but other then that I’m taking a small break, I don’t want to burn out completely after all. This is where playing so many games actually comes in handy, they all seem to remind me why I love my ‘main’ games.

What do you think about daily quests? Are they a good thing? A bad thing? Would you like to see more creative ways to entice players to log in every day? Let me know in comments!

Safe travels, and happy gaming!

Having spent very little time in any instances that went live with Sentinel’s Fate, I was excited to join up for four of them yesterday. We started with the two that I have already been to, the Erudian Library, and the Research Halls. Afterward we decided to head to the Vasty Deep zones, Conservatory was our first mark, and then Labs. Unfortunately labs is still currently broken, one of the named refuses to spawn and it’s required in order to reach the final named, but it was still quite fun.

One thing I really love about running these instances is that it’s an alts dream come true. Pretty much every piece of scout related gear that dropped was an upgrade for my troubador – specifically because SOE changed us from being int / str based bards to agi which is a stat I have never focused on. It was very nice to be able to replace a great deal of my int / caster based gear for agi, and I also managed to inch my way closer to getting UT which is the only thing anyone ever seems to want from a troubador. Since this is my alt (and one of many) I admit that I’ve neglected her achievements quite severely, but I’m about 6 away from picking it up thanks to the plethora of quests available in Vasty Deep.

When I wasn’t running instances, I dove back into battlegrounds. It’s getting to the point now where people are gearing themselves up with ‘toughness’ gear which is mitigation / critical mitigation for PvP. In other words it means it makes them harder to hit. I don’t like where this is going, because eventually for anyone who didn’t get in on the ground floor, you’re going to have to face a large number of loses until you can save up enough tokens to also gear yourself out with that critical mitigation gear.

I also really wish the numbers meant something. When the game ends you see a screen pop up with number of death blows and healing done etc. I wish there was a (even small would be alright) coin number associated with the locations on that list, so if you topped the killing blows and damage dealt list, you would receive some coin for your troubles. Since Battlegrounds can prove to be an effective method of leveling from 80-90 and also even grant achievement experience, I think that awarding a coin value to doing well in them would be great and then you wouldn’t feel obligated to go quest in order to earn money.

As it is now those stats are for nothing but bragging rights, since you earn 1 token for losing, and 3 for winning. There’s nothing else to be gained.

In the mean time I hope everyone is enjoying their game of choice, and I’ll see you in Norrath!

I decided some time last weekend that what I really wanted was a battleground character. A character who would do nothing but battlegrounds (there for 80 is my goal) and not have to worry about too much more. Most of my regular characters are support classes, and aside from the illusionist I find them a little difficult to play in battlegrounds. The mystic casts very slow, and aside from run speed I haven’t really found a use for the bards. A lot is due to my gear and lack of achievements on these smaller alts, and the fact that for PvP they’re simply not suited for it. I know that ranged casters have an easier time of things because they can stand back and nuke, and scouts can stealth, assassins can put out some massive dps and stun (especially if you’re using poisons) but none of my characters are those classes.

When I finished moving all of my characters to Oasis I also did a little spring cleaning. That left me with three character slots on my main account. Something I haven’t seen in quite some time. I decided to create a necromancer, and level her up (power level to be exact) to 80 so that I could start doing battlegrounds with her. I managed to inch my way to levle 40 yesterday, which was the half way mark at least.

I’ve been having fun in the battlegrounds, it doesn’t matter if I win or lose. I’ve found the 24 person to be a lot more fun then the smaller versions, and I like going with an 80-89 character so that you’re not dealing with level 90 mains. It’s hard to fight against the Nagafen players because they’re used to constant pvp and they have toughness on all of their gear already, but I managed.

I’ve only managed to win one of five battles so far, but since you’re rewarded (although at a smaller level) either way, at least your time is compensated for. I wish that corpses had a chance to drop coin or some sort of other reward for spending your time in a battleground as opposed to say – leveling, but maybe that will come in some where down the road.

I haven’t played the smaller battlegrounds yet, but I do know that if you come up against a guild group and you’re in a PUG your chances of winning decrease drastically. Organization is a killer in battlegrounds, and the more organized you are, the more likely you are to win.

Other then that, I’ve still just been taking my time and exploring Sentinel’s Fate. It’s a beautiful expansion with a lot to do. I hope everyone else has been having fun, I’ll see you in Norrath!

I don’t consider myself a very hard core raider. Even back when I was raiding full time I never joined a guild that used call lists to gather members, and I’ve never fought an avatar. I enjoy raiding a great deal, but with so many games on my plate some times it’s simply not in my best interest to spend that much time in it. Thankfully Paradise Lost is quite aware of my unique hours, and I’m able to raid with them casually. Last night they were off to Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory which is one of the new Sentinel’s Fate raid zones. No, I’m not about to post strats here – but.

I did want to make a comparison between TSO raids and SF raids. First of all, developers had already stated that they didn’t want Sentinel’s Fate to be a repeat of The Shadow Odyssey where healers paid more attention spamming cures then anything else. If someone asked me what Zarrakon looked like I would have to check the guild hall trophy because I spent most of my time curing and running for red and blue pools (and trying not to fall off the edge of his platform). SF has a little less curing, but a lot more jousting (at least what I’ve seen from it so far). Jousting to avoid massive “bad things” that will happen to your raid if you don’t joust.

My favorite encounter by far was Perah’Celsis himself for one very specific reason. First of all, the fight is intense. Understatement actually. He has a buff that has a chance for random raiders to become charmed. The charm can’t be cured for a specific duration, once that passes you can cure it. There’s nothing more fun then having healers, mages, scouts, and fighters of your own raid all running through the ranks and killing everyone. In so many encounters it is the mobs who get to do the smushing, but this time around I think the guild got more kills then the named.I love learning a new encounter and being able to explore a new zone. It’s refreshing. It’s also exceptionally nerve wracking.

My mystic managed to land two pieces of gear (sure, no one else wanted them but that’s besides the point) which was nice and I really did have a good time even though I spent most of the night doubting my healing capabilities. It’s hard when you’re in a full raid of people who are geared up properly and who have been playing together for years. My character is still sporting T2 from TSO and some pretty poor jewelery slots. I did the best I could, and hopefully that was enough. It also comes in handy that mystics are armed with a whole lot of buffs for their group, so even if my healing wasn’t top notch, I was at least providing some awesomeness for everyone else.

Happy gaming, and I’ll see you in Norrath! I have a post in mind about Battlegrounds, but until things are a little more ‘fixed’ and not so ‘broken’ I’ll be holding off on that. The few that I managed to get into were actually a LOT of fun, and I’m looking forward to talking about them!

Yesterday I finally managed to wiggle my way into some instances in EQ2 – the first time I had actually gotten to explore the Sentinel’s Fate areas on live servers. My group first headed to the Erudian Library which is one of the easier zones included this expansion and also one of the most fun. Players get to figure out which NPC murdered another (and where, and with what) and accuse them of it. If you guess right, you get some extra rewards and neat house items. Afterward we headed to the Research Halls, which was also a lot of fun and not too difficult.

SF has new shards (and on a side note why did SOE implement the fix to disallow gray shard runs after they made those shards obsolete?) and I have a handful of them stored up. There are shards (tokens) for pretty much everything now, PvP, Crafting, various forms of PvE gear. Even all of the live events have a ‘token system’ of some sort (Erollisi day, Magical Grottos, etc). My banks are filling up with these things.

I managed to get a lot of nice upgrades for the troubador through these in instances including some very nice charms. I’m still inching my way towards upbeat tempo (the troubadors bread and butter) but I’m not that far away now. I haven’t played the bard seriously in quite some time. It’s been fun so far.

I did have one major change this weekend. I decided that playing on multiple servers is simply too difficult. It’s too hard to spread characters all over the place and expect them all to accomplish every ‘major’ goal in the game. I love games that only have one server so the choice is made for me, but since that is not an option for EQ2 I had to make a pretty hard decision. In the end I came to the conclusion that I would play on Oasis, and no other servers. This weekend I spent most of it packing up belongings from Antonia Bayle and moving my characters over. I don’t even remember the last time I was only playing on one server, it’s been 2-3 years. The decision was a long time coming and it certainly wasn’t an easy one for me. There were a lot of outside factors that came into play (that I’m not going to get into here on my blog because it’s simply not the place). I’m very happy with my decision, and I’m really excited on playing on one server. I’m already fairly settled in over there as it’s one of three servers I was attempting to play on.

I did also get some battleground time in – and I have all sorts of thoughts on that subject, but it’s a post for another day (maybe backlogging yesterday, since I didn’t make a post).

Happy gaming, and I’ll see you in Norrath!

Games have bad days, just like people, go figure.

That’s what I learned yesterday in spades, as EQ2 had probably one of the worst days I’ve ever seen in the game. It was horrible.

To start it off, the game was taken down for what was supposed to be a two hour downtime to implement battlegrounds, and turned into an almost 6 hour downtime. Now if you’ve played any sort of MMO for any amount of time you’re probably already used to this as extended downtimes happen. For those who are not aware, battlegrounds were supposed to go live on the 23rd with Sentinel’s Fate but were held back two extra days for fine tuning. Apparently not tuned enough.

If you were one of the first people into the battlegrounds when the servers came up you’re probably regretting it now. Upon leaving the battlegrounds players lost all alternate advancement over 200, as well as levels in both crafting and adventuring if you were below level 90 and had made any progress. Instead of doing rollbacks, those people affected were told to send in a petition so that they could be adjusted by hand, and we all know how fast those get answered. My guild leader on Oasis was fuming, to say the least. As of yet he still has not gotten an answer back. Thankfully it was an ‘off night’ and raids were not being planned, or else it would have been a lot worse.

If the bad news had of stopped there it would have been an ok day none the less, but it wasn’t. Players who were looking for quest updates that drop from chests were out of luck, as every single chest that dropped a quest piece was opened to be found – empty. If you were working on a particular heritage quest found in Sentinel’s Fate no doubt you were very angry when the quest pieces refused to drop. I had about 15 empty boxes drop for me before I just decided to ignore them.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom though! Battlegrounds did go in, and they’re interesting. Sure, your entire guild spams you with ‘log in’ and ‘log out’ messages because it ports you to a different server, but apparently they can also be quite fun. The new adornment recipes also made it in game, as well as the new tinkering recipes. Personal harvest box? Yes please!

I worked on gaining achievements for my ratonga troubador, and giggled to myself at everyone being upset. It’s alright, games can have bad days too. I’m sure it will get better.

The game is down for a good portion of the morning (ok it’s really only two hours) while battlegrounds get implemented (fingers crossed for smooth sailing) but last night my mystic hit level 90. I gained levels through a combination of things, grinding in the hole (which has become the new Palace of the Awakened) questing, and grinding in Sebilis. Laste night Kasul and I decided to mentor to 65 and head to The Nest, which granted a lot of experience, and then afterward I was about 30% to my level so we went to Palace of the Awakened. It was easier to grind in old world zones (although Desert of Flames is not THAT old world) then it was to fight through lag and other players in Sentinel’s Fate.

That means I’ve now got a 90 troubador and mystic, a 90 alchemist and jeweler. I don’t plan on leveling any more adventurers currently. Crafters on the other hand, I’d like to get them all to 90. I want to work on alternate advancement (aa) on the troubador because she is incredibly behind (I believe I’m sitting at 164 right now, which means when people ask for UT I just sigh at them) the mystic is in good standing. I may actually get some raid experience too, depending on how things go. We’ll see.

One thing a lot of people have been commenting on is the some what lack luster quests of Sentinel’s Fate. They involve a LOT of running around. Going to one npc, picking up a quest, going to the 2nd npc, who completes the quest and offers a new quest to go back to the first npc. Chains and chains of quests like these. There are a few good and entertaining stories, and I do enjoy working on faction but the running around can tend to wear a person down. Heritage quests? Yes Sentinel’s Fate has a few of these too, and while I’ve picked them up I haven’t actually taken it to the next step and worked on them. That will come with time I’m sure (especially since I need so many aa).

Now that it’s a little over a week into the expansion, how is everyone finding it? Are there particular dungeons you’re enjoying, or perhaps a chain of quests? Let me know!

Happy gaming, I’ll see you in Norrath.

Yesterday the digital download went live, and zones became a little more ‘full’ then they had been previously. While most of the people I personally know had purchased the retail box versions, there were a few who managed to hold off from temptation and wait. I may as well have been one of those people because yesterday was the first day I actually managed to dive into the game with any real purpose in mind.

I started out in Paineel, working on the adventure quests. The good thing about this is that I was also able to work on the crafting chain at the same time, and it wasn’t long before I lost myself in those quests. I really love the fact that there are dedicated craft chains for those non-adventuring folk, the quests were fun and interactive and just really well done. Plus they rewarded lots of neat housing items, and who doesn’t enjoy that!

On the adventure side of things, I headed to Paineel and learned about ‘where everything is’ which is really important. The porter that takes you to the city can also be used to travel to other places (by right clicking on it and selecting the location). There are the Airship Docks, which are used to get to instances as well as picking up quests for those instances. There is the Launch Pad which quickly becomes your best friend because it ports you around the Sundered Frontier on a hover craft like machine. This also takes you to the Stonebrunt Highlands, which is the second outdoor zone in Sentinel’s Fate. Both of the outdoor zones are massive, and remind me of Jarsath Wastes but a lot more pretty, and even bigger. With more quests. Yep, more.

There is also Spire Isle, which is of course where the wizard spire is located, and where you’ll find yourself (more then likely) when you first enter the Sentinel’s Fate zones. If you’re looking to begin the crafting chain right away, just head down the path and you’ll find the (familiar named) NPC at the end who will offer crafting quests for those 80 and up. Then there are also two lifts, one takes you to above Paineel, an area populated by a lot of hidden vermin, and the other takes you to a cave that will lead to the opposite end of that same area. It’s also an easy way to head towards the druid ring which you’ll want to pick up so you can port to the zone.

The mystic (who I was doing all of these quests on) managed to inch her way to level 86, and obtained a few alternate advancement points along the way. While I was not pleased (at all) that my epic had been nerfed (why do that two expansions later?!) I do enjoy the new mystic choices for Sentinel’s Fate. One of the aa I can obtain turns my group (of hopefully melee) into stags and gives them a combat art proc for 24 seconds much like the dirge cacophony of blades. There are lots of temporary group buffs that will proc on a spell being cast (troubadors and enchanters are famous for these spells) but not a whole lot procs for CAs, so I am pretty pleased with it. Plus I changed my aa around so that I’m back to using CA instead of spells, and I can actually take advantage of the buff myself.

I’ve been having a lot of fun, and I’m hoping to hit 90 on the mystic before too long. I’d like to get into some instances, as I haven’t played any yet on the live server. That will probably come with time. The troubador is sitting comfortably at 90 but I’m really looking forward to this second character.

I hope everyone is having a fantastic week so far, happy gaming, and I’ll see you in Norrath!

Wow. 1500 posts already. For me this is a HUGE milestone. I’ve been writing on MmoQuests.com for five years this year. FIVE years? That’s a life time in the online world. Hitting such a mark made me think about milestones, not just in real life but in our gaming atmospheres. Above is a screen shot from March 2006, it’s my very first guild (that I personally created), Fire and Ice on the … I can’t even remember which server. It’s either Najena or Lucan D’Lere. Satia was my character (a dark elf warden who I now play as Seduisant, having renamed when I moved servers multiple times). Our guild had just reached level 17, and it was such a proud moment. It was before we were even aware of the fire and ice quest that would take you to defeat Darathar and obtain your prismatic 1.0

Reaching these milestones in any capacity is an incredible feeling. Whether you’ve nailed a project at work, or reached a new level in a game. Whether you and your friends have done something incredible together, or you’ve finally made that big purchase you’ve always dreamed of. Reaching milestones makes us feel good about our situations (typically) and carrying this over into a video game is just one more aspect of allowing us to feel GOOD about things. Who wants to play a game where all you do is feel shoddy all of the time. We play them because we feel good, it’s entertaining.

I’m looking forward to reaching many more milestones as time goes on, and I hope everyone else reaches their milestones too. I’m still in awe at 1500 posts, haha.

Happy gaming everyone, I’ll see you in Norrath, Tranquility, The Spire, Telon, Middle Earth, Atreia, the American Grand Canyon, Hyboria, Azeroth, Tyria, Eberron, and numerous other places.

Sentinel’s Fate is only one day away from being fully released, tomorrow the digital download becomes active for those who have not picked themselves up a retail copy of the game. As of right now, I have two level 90 crafters (alchemist and jeweler, so I can make skills for guild mates) as well as one level 90 adventurer (the troubador) and an 85 adventurer (the mystic). I’ve been very happy to have crafters at the level cap again, as EQ2 grants a 10% bonus (up to a max of 50%) for having characters at ‘end game’. The expansion still manages to get mixed reviews from players. I’ve been having a lot of fun questing my way with the second character, the zones are just absolutely amazing looking. I don’t typically enjoy quests that make me run from point A to point Z then back to point A, but since this is my first time through the quests, it’s not quite so bad.

I was a little disappointed that players didn’t get a new ‘unique’ skill at 90 like we did at 80, and I find it more then a little surprising that you can obtain your fabled epic weapon, reach levle 90, and then convert it to the buff that grants the mythical effects. I can understand why this is, after all who wants to continue to do Veeshan’s Peak flagging for the mythical weapons, but in my eye it also reduces the importance of the mythical. Those weapons were once status marks, but now they’re so easy to obtain (especially with the level cap being raised) that I almost feel as though they’ve been cheapened. I guess that comes with every expansion (Prismatic 1.0, Godking, Claymore, Soulfire) and its major ‘quest line’.

I was concerned before the game went live that the changes to stats may bother me (the fact that they were condensed so that players only require concentrating on one main stat no matter the class instead of spreading them around) but now that it’s live it’s really not bad. I don’t like the fact that two of my mythical weapons were nerfed two expansions after they were released (warden and mystic) but there’s not a lot I can do about it now. Battlegrounds will go live tomorrow, and it will be interesting to see how that works and how it’s welcomed by the EQ2 community.

Raids last night included a lot of discoveries, but sadly the guild is required to be at level 90 before moving on to the next zone (in order to zone in). While a good chunk of players are level 90, not everyone is and that presents some problems. I imagine all raid guilds have the same issue when an expansion comes out.

I hope everyone else is still enjoying their adventures through Sentinel’s Fate. Happy gaming, and I’ll see you in Norrath!