I love how different games are – despite the fact that the term “WoW Clone” gets used fairly often, I happen to think there are a lot less clones then we may think. I’ve been playing a lot of Vanguard, and that’s slightly on the back burner again as I dip my toes into World of Warcraft and EVE Online. Without getting into a lot of personal details, lets just say that I’m not exactly pleased with the approach that sony has taken concerning EQ2X and the decisions they’ve made that seem to bring it closer to that ‘WoW clone’ – if I wanted to play WoW, well. I would. So I am. I talk a lot about supporting the things you enjoy, and voting with your wallet. It pains me a little that I haven’t even really played EQ2 for a few months now. A game that I spent more then 5 years in and have met a lot of fantastic people. I just feel that the changes that have been happening don’t coincide with what I want from the game. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against RMT, or cash shops or F2P (though in most cases you almost always end up paying). What I am against is a game that I’ve been playing one way for so long suddenly changing and deciding they want to be a different game. Silly? Maybe. It’s just how I feel. Anyhow, enough of that rant.

In WoW I’m making the climb to 80, and managed to get my little warlock to 63 yesterday running dungeons with Toargo, a fantastic warrior. My rough ‘goal’ is a level a day until I hit 70, and then I know it will slow down and I’ll take it from there. I’ve also been working on a little crafting (engineering) and some cooking and first aid as well as fishing. In WoW these are skills that make my ‘toon’ feel more like a ‘character’ and give it life. In Eq2 it would be decorating a home, and working on achievements.

Like I mentioned above, I’ve also paired my WoW gaming with EVE Online, a drastically different type of game. I’ve been doing a LOT there, but I’m going to save it for another post (moahaha). What was everyone else up to this weekend? Let me know in comments! As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.

If you play on Antonia Bayle (and these days it seems like almost everyone does) you’ve probably heard of two large player run festivals. One is the Festival of Unity, and the other is the Festival of Discord. This year, a third festival has made it into the play list. The Festival of the Sands. It takes place from August 15th to the 21st in Sinking Sands, and has even had some help with setting up thanks to one Gnobrin.

I decided to go to the opening ceremonies last night, and while there was not quite as large a turn out as I have seen for the previous festivals, it was still a sight. The week is split up into numerous events – and if you’re interested in meeting some fellow role players I highly suggest you check it out.

Sunday, August 15, 2010
Remembrance of the First Sultan and Founding of the City

Blessing of Ro and Opening Ceremony
Location: Fires of Ro
Sponsor: Rhana
4:00 CST

Battle of the Bards
Location: Poet’s View
Sponsor: Sihayya
5:00 CST

So You Think You Can Belly Dance
Location: Poet’s View
Sponsor: Hipolita and Meridyth
6:30 CST

Wishing Well
Sponsor: Tregarde
9:00 CST

You can find a calendar with a list of events, as well as a map of locations on their web site. Player run events like these take a lot of work to pull off, and I really appreciate the guilds that are working to put it together. If you’ve never attended a festival like this before I highly suggest you take a peek. They’re always a LOT of fun!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Since I’m not actually at Fan Faire this year (pout) I’ve been watching EQ2 wire for their updates.

They released some of the concept art of “EQ Next” – be sure to take a peek.

Here are some key points from the Community Address that happened last night:

EverQuest: House of Thule releases on October 14th. It adds a plethora of new dungeons and content, as well as the addition of player housing.

EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious releases February 8th and, amongst other things, will introduce flying mounts in most zones. It is unclear which zones are being configured to allow this. Say what you will about Brenlo, but this was an initiative he pushed for. Glad to see it’s coming.

EQ2 Extended — Beta launches August 17th. New optional free adventure service. Live subscription remains unchanged. Yadda yadda.

FreeRealms coming to Mac and PS3 in ~2 months. Currently 13 million players (unknown how many are paying)

Clone Wars Adventures — shown at E3, targeted at FreeRealms crowd. Based closely on the Cartoon Network series and will have heavy cross-promotion.

Magic the Gathering strategy game will be something quite different. It’s not a TCG.

DC Universe Online – Releases November 2nd. PC and PS3, Action-based physics. Newsworthy bit: Pre-ordering will be huge and allow you to play as Batman, as well as get a basketful of free items. Shown the astonishingly good trailer from last week featuring Lex Luthor.

Be sure to take a peek at the rest of the SOE Fan Faire info they have posted, I’ll be taking bits and pieces and mentioning them here for readers to get the information out. Am I excited? Eh. I am VERY excited about EQ player housing. EQ2 flying mounts? Not so much. Also, after browsing through the schedule for Fan Faire, I was sad to see there are 0 panels on Vanguard. There’s a 2 hour live quest, but that’s it. Figures.

My favorite zone, in both EQ and EQ2, is Castle Mistmoore. I just love the way it looks and feels. It’s pretty much empty these days, but still holds as much excitement as the first time I went through.

I recently took my shadowknight in to look for shinies and work on achievements. Memories of Soulfire danced on the edge of my mind. I loved that quest chain, even though I’d only completed it once.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

This is an ongoing project of mine, I’ve had a Norrathian Museum for a few years now, and decided when Halas came out that I’d revamp it and move to the new homes. I’ve only got a few rooms done so far, but I love working on it.

For anyone who has read this blog over the past five years I’ve been writing on it, you’ll be well aware of the fact that I betray my characters in EQ2 – often. In fact I don’t think there is a single character I’ve ever played that I haven’t betrayed at least once, and some of them multiple times. It doesn’t matter what level they are, or how many masters they own, when I start to get the urge to betray I typically go through with it. In fact just two weeks ago I was betraying my warden over to a fury.

I enjoy my ‘quiet time’ in game. That’s not to say that I don’t like talking to others, I do, but there comes a time where I prefer to solo and do my own thing. Sadly, none of my characters were really optimized for that sort of play style – until I created the paladin. With the bonus experience this weekend I managed to gain a bunch of achievements, and on a whim decided that paladin was not really my play style for a solo character. They have fantastic aggro management making them optimal in tanking for groups. They have great heals, both single target and group.

However, shadowknights have a lot of tools available to them for soloing – such as feign death, and evac. I decided that I’d like to make better use of the ‘solo’ tools, and thus began my betrayal. I spent 450 plat on kaborite clusters, made all my new adept3, and spent an hour or two working my way through Neriak doing the simple quests required to move my faction. I’ve played a shadowknight before (though I’ve never had one of my own) so they’re not exactly new to me – and they play a lot like the paladin did. I mentored down, headed to Ruins of Varsoon and quickly farmed myself a few masters and some achievements. It was a nice pleasant quiet night, and I’m looking forward to seeing what other trouble the shadowknight can get into. I know that a lot of people are playing crusaders this expansion for various reasons, but at least while I’m playing by myself it doesn’t matter how many others are playing one since I’m doing my own thing.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

While Canada celebrated its 143rd birthday on Thursday, this weekend also happens to be Independence Day for the United States, and thus a lot of my friends are around in game – not to mention there are a lot of in-game bonuses going on. EQ2 is having their 2nd ever 100% “true” experience bonus weekend, granting 100% bonus to aa, crafting, and combat. I decided to take advantage of it along with a LOT of others. First up was a few Protectors Realm runs, for cash and manas. This dungeon is from Ruins of Kunak, and it’s old now but still grants experience. We took five people to do the entire zone, the first time through I healed on my mystic, and the second time through I played my troubador. I made about 24 plat each run, and everyone managed to get themselves a few infusions and manas for their gear.

Due to an issue transferring my mystic over to Oasis earlier this week, I had to delete my 39 conj (who was in the midst of betraying to a necromancer) and I decided that this would be the perfect weekend to re-create her. Instead of a fae I decided to roll an iksar, and now she’s sitting happily back at level 39 with a good selection of aa to her name. Experience is turned off so that I can focus on making her ready for battlegrounds, and I have hopes of eventually crafting with her and creating the sage I lack on Oasis.

Over all I’m quite pleased with the progress I made. The 100% bonus runs until the 6th, so there’s still plenty of time to take advantage of it. Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself, I hope everyone has had a fantastic (and safe) weekend!

We all have a zone that we would consider our ‘favorite’ – whether it’s an end game zone, or one that we explore over and over again. What I’m curious about is whether these zones are our favorites because of the zone mechanics – or because of some unforgettable story that goes along with them. I would have to say that mine is a combination of things. I absolutely love the mechanic of some zones. I love the stories that go along with them, and trying to figure them out. I would have to say one of my favorites is Djinn Master’s Prism. I have only been to this raid zone ONCE in my entire EQ2 gaming span, and it was one that I won’t soon forget.

This raid zone came with Desert of Flames, and is located in Shimmering Citadel. It’s one of the most scripted fights I’ve ever encountered to date and only ONE guild beat it at the proper level cap.

The fight seems simple enough. Upon zoning in you’ll see some scripted messages that indicate a particular song must be played for the final fight. You slowly work your way through the instance to the final room, clearing trash and a few named that drop pieces for the songs. The Djinn Master resides in the final room. To beat the encounter you need to have raid members who have a music box charm item that is quested (by finding scarabs throughout DoF zones). This music box allows you to root the Djinn Master in place during proper intervals of the song. If you use the music box too many times, he becomes immune to the root.

When you start the script for the encounter you’ll see a number of instruments spawn in the room. You have to place them all in a circle, and then have people play them in order depending on which song was scripted at the beginning. Each instrument corresponds to a letter. While you play the song successfully, you have to root the Djinn Master in the center of all the instruments. He’s immune to attacks while this is going on. He also (of course) has a huge knock back that will fling people everywhere, making playing the instruments all the more difficult. Keep him rooted and he won’t do this. Positioning him to the center of the instruments is difficult. Keeping people playing them properly, also difficult. Not to mention the instruments de-spawn after you’ve played one verse of the song, and re-spawn in a jumbled mess shortly after when it’s time to play the next verse. This happens (I believe) at least four times during the fight. Of course since the Djinn Master is immune to attacks unless you play the song and keep him rooted, the fight is all the more fun.

Things are easier now that the level cap has risen so much above the DoF expansion, but it was still one of my most favorite fights. It was an incredible team effort, and so this zone is one of my favorites not only because of the amazing script that went along with it but because of the comradeship displayed by guild mates.

What about everyone else? What’s your favorite zone / event – and why? Let me know in comments!

No update on whether my mystic will be moving to Oasis any time soon. I got an email on Friday that said there was no ETA on when the problem may be solved, and I should just sit tight. That’s what I’m doing. I’ve already paid the $25 to transfer and I’ve heard stories from friends where it’s taken weeks lately to get a character transfer, so I guess we’ll just have to see how it works out I suppose. Having not yet learned my lesson I also put in a request to move a character from my 2nd EQ account over to my main one (my 81 enchanter, as well as my 59 beastlord). Since it was the weekend I didn’t really expect to hear back from anyone (and I didn’t), but hopefully there will be an update on the situation today.

I did get some game time in which was nice. My fury tagged along and did Library, Research Halls, and Palace last night. I didn’t get any loot (master spells or other wise) but I did get a handful of shards, which I’ve been storing up in my shared bank. If my mystic ever transfers over I’ll have another bunch of shards to add to my collection, and I should be able to get some nice gear upgrades.

I’ve settled on two ‘mains’ which is nice. The dirge, and the fury (which may change to the mystic if she makes it back to Oasis). They both need lots of work (alternate advancement for the most part) but are fun to play and not so under geared that I can’t do anything with them. I like having goals to work towards and things to work on, it keeps me logging in.

How did everyone else spend their weekend? Hopefully you had a great time, no matter where you found yourself.

A little while back SOE added the ability for players to save and load house layouts, and adjust those files by hand to create some awesome effects in their homes. While players can typically ‘raise’ and ‘lower’ an item by holding shift + scroll wheel, and re-size and item by holding control + scroll wheel (I may have those backwards) you can’t normally ‘flip’ an item, or rotate, pitch, and roll it. With the ability to adjust the layout files by hand also came the ability to adjust all of these specifications. Unfortunately, it’s also quite complicated when you’re looking at the actual ‘code’ – a whole bunch of numbers that players would have to play around with in order to get the desired effect they wanted.For people like me who A) Read a lot of numbers backwards and B) Are simply daunted by something that complicated, it meant that layouts were something I’d be leaving alone for now.

Along came Jesdyr’s EQ2LayoutEditor, a program that would allow players to load the layouts that they had saved, adjust them in a far more comprehensive method, save them, and then load the saved layout in game. This program is amazing. You can find it on the EQ2Designers web page as well as on the EQ2players forums (linked above) and if you’re interested in playing with housing layouts I would HIGHLY suggest you try using this program. There are comprehensive tutorials and your imagination really is the limit with this tool.

Why would anyone want to use it? Well, it’s handy for things like placing a floor tile along a wall to create a better effect. You can place knives into a wooden block for a kitchen, you can turn fences sideways into ladders, or create an entire room on the ceiling if that’s what you wish. I personally used it to move the cloudy sky floor tiles to the walls as well as the ceiling in my green house and I do have plans to use it elsewhere, like turning the steam lord tapestry (water effect) sideways to create a relaxing pool. There are still some times glitches with SOE’s side of things, but if you check the forums there are typically work arounds for them all. For example when I raise the floor tiles to the ceiling they actually appeared to be gone completely, until I zoned out and re-set my house. Loading it and zoning in again fixed the problem and both tiles appeared on the ceiling just fine.

It is definitely a decorators dream, and if you tend to spend most of your time in game imagining your next creation, then I would highly suggest you check it out.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!