The move was worth it, just for the piano

The move went off without a hitch — almost. When I got to my new servers (I am on Kithicor now, with all of the girls - decided to follow the members of my previous guild with everyone, instead of splitting them up and remaining on both Najena and Kithicor.. thank goodness we could move twice) I noticed everything from my house vault, was doubled– not something I had planned by the way. My house vault was filled with crafting raws, spare fire places, and 6 vaults worth of items. Even the boxes themselves were doubled and placed into my overflow. So my first reaction was to petition it, and bug report it. Because what would prevent someone from filling their house vault with masters and transferring their characters around only to find that they suddenly had two or three of a certain item.

Later on in the day, I was pleased to see this announcement, though I am also glad I got my move in before they ended the server transfer service (for the time being). A few of my guild mates are still looking to move, and I hope the service is back up today so that they can proceed. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with the doubled items, if I’d get into trouble for selling them or using them, this was the only responce I got from SoE about the incident:

Response (GM Kimbial) - 05/01/2007 03:11 PM
Greetings Vivacious,

This is Senior Game Master Kimbial. Thank you for contacting Sony Online Entertainment In-Game Customer Service. And welcome to Najena. The issue with the duplicating items on any server is known and Development has been made aware of the issue. We ask at this time that you hold onto the items, if you can, or delete them to clear out your over flow. We’ll have a better idea of what Development wants us to do to resolve this matter once they’ve taken a look at the coding and address it there. We do apologize for the inconvenience.

If there is anything else we can try to assist you with, please do not hesitate to ask.

Safe journeys,

Senior Game Master Kimbial
EverQuest II Customer Service
Sony Online Entertainment

It made for a fairly interesting day I suppose, none the less. I joined my new guild, and headed to HoS (it was an off night, so we were all just raiding for fun). It was nice to see 20+ people logged in on a non-raid night. Surprised me in fact. Most raiding guilds there is no one around if raids are not planned. Tonight is our first “real” raid night that I’m apart of. The guild is actually branched off of a previous one where leadership did not see eye to eye on certain matters. I was not apart of that incident nor do I know what happened (nor do I care). It means that the guild is level 25, and that actually makes me happy. It means I can be a part of helping it level and actually feel as though I’ve contributed to the guild.

Silverstep, on her way to Unrest

First of all, I have to vent. I really hate how a lot of guilds are lately, in their treatment of non-guildies. One issue in specific, would have to be asking / letting someone join on a raid - only to tell them (or not tell them at all) that the raid is actually full, and they’re no longer needed. This is an issue that has happened to not only myself, but a few friends of mine, and not just one isolated incident, with one guild, but at least three, with three separate guilds. Mine typically goes along the lines of standing around waiting for a raid invite, then the raid zones in, uninvited, after being invited along. Which is the same thing that’s happened to a few other TK’ers. One even went so far as to sign up 12th for a raid, and was denied a spot on it. Not because they’re a horrible player, but simply because in the end ‘there was no room’, even if they registered and it was organized ahead of time that they’d be able to go.

I think my largest concern is that the guilds doing this do not even have the curtsey to SAY something to those involved, but leave them standing around watching the raid force zone in. I realize that organizing a raid is a difficult and time consuming thing. I realize running one means you’re constantly heading in ten directions at once, and things can get confusing, but what happened to having a little bit of humanity and taking some consideration for those who are dedicating their time (and efforts) to help out on said raids? It frustrates me to no end. I’m a good raider, and a good player. I’m not the best, there’s always better out there, but I’m adaptable and know my stuff. I wish I didn’t have to prove that to every single person out there and was given the benefit of the doubt. Anyhow, enough of that rant.

The game update 33 went in yesterday, and I absolutely love what they’ve done to macros. I don’t use a whole lot of them, but I do have macros for divine arbitration on the templar, as well as her sanctuary spell. In the past, these macros have never shown what the recast on the spell was, since you choose a separate icon to display it. Which meant that some where on another hotbar, I’d have to stick sanctuary and DA just so that I could watch the recast timer and know when it would be back up. Annoying, to say the least. I also have macros for my mez’s, depending on the situation. I don’t want to spam my groups with macros obviously. My +168 temporary int buff is also on a macro, as well as Savante, a 52 illusionist rare that reduces mana consumption by 56% for a limited amount of time. I’ll certainly be playing with the functions as time goes on and figuring out the best macro methods for me.

The next sword of destiny quest was also released. Not looking forward to that, I haven’t even completed the first two yet. Slacker, I know. I’ve had a lot on my plate lately both in game and out, so I’m moving a little slower. I finally got around to making food and drink, but other then that have not crafted. Transmuting I worked on slightly, but not a lot. My other smaller crafters have been fairly neglected, but I’m sure I’ll pick it back up. Still not much word yet on the incoming server transfers. I haven’t made up my mind yet about where to go (or whether to just stay). Yesterday morning was fun, just before servers came down I heard that the unicorn (level 60 epicx2) who paths around the Obelisk in LesserFaydark, was up. I poked a friend of mine and asked him if he wanted to duo it with me boxing the illusionist / fury. With only 15 minutes until down time it was a little pressed, but down she went (is the unicorn even a she? I’m not sure.. how do you check that?) and dropped a master chest. I was hoping for the cloak, but instead got a dagger which was of course no trade. I would have ran my assassin down to pick it up, except servers were about to go down in four minutes, so I rolled and won it, and transmuted it. I did get the rare mana component out of it so I suppose that’s better then nothing, but it would have been a pretty upgrade for the assassin (if I ever level her).

Tinkering supplies have been cut in half. I love it. There are also new tinkered adornments out there, mob drop recipes only, I haven’t seen one yet, I’d imagine they’re very expensive. Much like everything these days. With a lack of crafting and farming in general, my funds are slowly dwindling. Oh well, not as if there is that much for me to purchase out there anyhow.

Stargrace and Silverstep, both working on the newest released quest, the sword of destiny

I’m not sure about any other servers out there, but mine has been bombarded it seems with tells for power leveling and selling platinum. Now, I don’t really care if people buy money. It’s a personal choice, breaking the rules or not. What I do mind, is the 3-4 tells I get from Xsdfjtidnmb advertising their site. I report every one of them. Not always because I hate people who buy plat, but just because they’re interrupting the game for me. The only way to avoid them is to go /role or /anon and I don’t believe that anyone should have to do that just to avoid the spam tells. It’s also a shame when I get all excited seeing my “you have mail” icon go off, rush to a mail box, only to find that it’s some gold selling site advertising their wears. My assumption for this sudden influx? They’re not making as much money as they used to. So they feel like they have to advertise more. When I played EQLive everyone knew where to go if you wanted to buy gold. It was like this secret that people rarely talked about but everyone had heard of it. I never once got a tell about it. Even in WoW I never received a tell about buying money for the game - though I did occasionally hear the messages being spammed over the channels.

In VG there’s a huge lock down on those who advertise selling money in game. I love it. They announce it to the server and all that good stuff. I wish EQII were the same way, but that’s just my grumpy opinion.

I have a few in-game dilemmas lately that I’m not sure how to handle. The largest one would be that although I have been welcome to raid with a specific guild, I am not allowed to join that guild. So while I play a needed class, and have been raiding constantly with them for the past two weeks, the leader says it would be a bad idea if I joined, and that I am not welcome to. It’s one thing to be a tag-along on a raid, but being an actual member of the guild is something all together different. I’m not concerned about loot at all, they use a dkp method that I am apart of, but lets say an actual guild member works up the class that I play. Or they find another class outside of guild. They will (obviously) get priority on raids because they carry the tag and I do not. It’s a case of “good enough for the raids, but not good enough for the guild” that I find really unfair. It’s understandable, because of a few other factors that I won’t get into here. I’ve been invited to tag along on some other raids, with another guild who is interested in me joining them, but I don’t feel quite as comfortable with them. That could change though I suppose. Hence my issue.

I’ve also been trying to decide which two characters to work on solidly. It’s difficult to work all three on the main quests that I have. I want to work on the sword of destiny before tomorrow’s game update comes out and they release another part. Doing the quest with all three characters though is a huge pain. Hell doing it with one is. Then there’s also my claymore and DT access quests. Neither the templar nor the illusionist have it though the fury is done both. Argh. The illusionist is at least almost at 100 aa, but the templar and even the fury are so far behind. Then of course there’s all the regular real life stuff going on that people have to deal with that’s not even game related. Feeling slightly stressed over everything.

The former Torrent Knights, about to kill Chel’Drak

One unfortunate side to MMO gaming is the fact that eventually, everyone moves on. Whether you are a life-time MMO player or not, it’s very rare you’ll see people play the same game for more then a few years. The games evolve, the people change, and we all wander that path and head different places. Over my years of gaming (5 now) I’ve met some fantastic people. Those who have become my closest friends and who I talk to on the phone as well as in game. People who I send Christmas cards to and who I would have never met were it not for the online community that I’d found. The above screen shot is my former guild, Torrent Knights. Towards the end, I felt that the guild was headed towards self destruction, they’d been asking folks to leave who simply could not attend a certain amount of raids due to real life issues. I don’t typically last long in guilds, and especially not raiding guilds, but TK was different. They were a close bunch of people who I felt very comfortable around. It was not just raiding (though it eventually turned to that) but felt like home.

With the onset of Vanguard the core of the guild left. What was once a some what hard core raiding guild degraded into something far more casual where now perhaps 4-5 people hang out while crafting or working on forgotten quests (myself included). I won’t forget those I’ve met though, or the stories we shared. Is it silly to think of this virtual world in such a sentimental manor? Of course not. Online or not, the emotions and feelings you can discover are not any less valid then a real life friendship (at least in my eyes - granted I’m exceptionally emotional, so I can be completely wrong here).

So where do I go from here? Do I attempt to find yet another new home or do I wander around Norrath on my own and form new friendships and do those dreaded pick up groups (yes yes, I know not ALL pick up groups are bad). It took me almost a year to find TK and settle in there. I’m not looking forward to searching for another home. I’ve got my small level 9 crafting guild with my alts, but the level 70’s still sport the TK tag for now. I do miss raiding on occasion, and there are still a few raiding guilds on LDL. Just not sure if any interest me, or if any are recruiting the classes that I play. I think it’s a shame that a new MMO came out (beta in a box at that) and my entire guild fell apart. The leadership and officers also went about it in a pretty crappy way. One day TK was raiding fine, and two weeks later they were completely done. Such is the way of MMO’s I suppose.

On a side note - there are plenty of guilds who are thriving and doing just fine since Vanguard has released, and in the 20-29 channel it’s been teaming with people who have moved to EQII due to the issues they’ve had with Vanguard. I think half of my sentimental feelings about the loss of TK is simply because I’m watching the other raid guilds move on and do content that we’d never finished off.

Mail, from Citizens for a Free Freeport

First of all, I apologize for the christmas colours, I promise they’ll be gone… after christmas *grins*

Restless. Bored. Repetitive.

Words I use to describe my end game healer (fury) in EQ2 on raids after playing her for about a year now (I played a templar as my main before that, and experienced the same thing). Why do I play healer classes? Well, first of all. I’m good at it. Without tooting my own horn, I know I’m a good healer. I know what to cast and when to keep the tanks alive (or my group of mages if it’s a raid). Secondly, healer has always been needed. Most of my friends either play a dps / support class or a tank. So that leaves a healer position open in a group.

So after taking a break from EQ2 to organize some real life things (see previous posts about too much play time) I decided I would take the plunge and attempt to situate myself with a new main. A difficult task, especially if you raid. It’s not simply a matter of logging in and deciding, ok, now I’ll play this character. I had to first discuss things with the officers and leaders of Torrent Knights - explaining why I wanted to change, what I was contemplating changing to, how it would benefit the guild, how it would be detrimental to the guild, etc. After a few days discussion I was told I could switch my main - in my mind, it is much more important to play a class you like, rather then a class you are simply good at. So my fury said good bye to her home (sighs, 127k of guild status lost by her name, but our guild has a policy of only one “main” in guild, and no alts), and my (at the time) coercer joined the ranks.

Now, TK already had two coercers. In fact, they used to have three but one recently left for another server that was more suitable to their play times. So I offered to betray to an illusionist, covering the costs of the betrayal myself. What costs are there? At level 70, it’s not a cheap thing to betray. You need to replace every spell that’s 55+ pretty much. With the prices of acrylia going for 1p-2p and needing 20 of them, + 7 pieces of Vanadium (as a mage), yeah, it’s an expensive ordeal. Then finding a T7 sage (since ours was the guildie who moved) to take care of such a large order without also charging you an arm and a leg for them to be made. Thankfully, Meepers offered to help me out in the sage department.

My poor wood elf.. she betrayed way back when, at around level 10, and went to coercer. I can’t even remember why now, it was probably right when they were given charm as a spell. Now she’s betrayed back to her home town of Qeynos. I actually don’t mind betraying or the whole process, I think it’s quite fun. I can betray from Freeport to Qeynos in a matter of two hours, the only drab part is repeating the blasted faction quests. Easiest one I’ve found is to sneak into west Freeport and collect the schedules from the tradeskill instance. The zone is right off of Commonlands where the quest giver is, and the guards don’t see invis. Rinse and repeat x 12.

So, hopefully I’ll find the game slightly revitalized playing a “new main”. Then again, maybe not. Worth a shot though. I also dropped my station access account (again) so I’m limited to 6 characters. Which should be more then enough. The necromancer hit level 50 earlier on in the day and could finally wear the robe I’d saved up for all those months back from Poets palace.. .You know the one, legendary with some FT on it? Looks awesome on a gnome.

A huge huge thank you to Ynnasiel from Valorous Union (the little guild I am in with 8 of my alts) for finding this huge treasure for me! This is the one tradeskill book that I have been waiting on forever, that I’ve never seen for sale, that has all of the palladium combines in it. She managed to snag it off of some unfortunate giant in thundering steppes, and let me tell you, Ricotta could not be happier. Well, maybe with some more cheese she could be but still, what an amazing gift. Especially since I know this could potentially sell for at least a plat (not that I’d ever pay that price). It certainly made my night.

Went with Silverstep and raided lyceum trash last night, only had one piece of relic drop, a chain breastplate. Not that I care so much I was hoping for relic leather boots, and unfortunately so are about 6 other leather wearers, so my chances of actually getting them are pretty slim to none. The shoes are the only piece of gear that I’d really like for my warden as she’s wearing mastercrafted at the moment and it looks exceptionally out of place on her.

Played Willamina a little as well, helping Pascolino finish off his access quest for CoD (boo, how come they removed access for every single other zone and left this one there?!) before raids, and Tixha came to visit again! She heard Pascolino talking in the 30’s channel and I said hello to her, she pounced and came to visit us, giving us treats again as always. Unfortunately everyone in VU plays way later then I do, and by the time my raids were over it was well past bed time, from the looks of guild event they headed off to RoV and did the instance in Fallen Gate (cries!) at least everyone seemed to have fun.

Lack of posts lately, I just haven’t felt the insperation I suppose. Now, I’ve moved servers twice before, once from Najena to Lucan D’Lere, and then back from Lucan to Najena (which is where I currently am). My choices to move were pretty basic, Lucan is far too small of a server for my tastes. It was a good time for a chance. I paid the $50 fee (twice) to move my two “mains” over, and don’t regret it at all. No issues with the move, their houses and banks and items remained in tact.

One thing I’ve done on each server and over time, is started a smaller guild just for my alts. This time was no different. I enjoy having a “home” for the smaller characters I play, if not specifically for any other bonus rather then just being able to use the guild bank to transfer items between them all (especially since I’m a heavy crafter). So “Rapture” is my new home, a guild name that I openly admit to seeing on Lucan and it appealed to me. Granted the one on Lucan is for a guild of Harlots and mine follows no such course, but I still found the name pleasant. There are exactly 7 members, 6 of which are my own characters, and the 7th a friend who also plays on Najena and put their smaller alt into the guild. I can craft and share items between the bank and I’m pleased with that. It also gives me a small “goal” to work towards in my spare time when I’m bored. I can level the guild up, if not for any other reason then simply because I wish to. It’s just a very relaxed thing for me to do.

Also started myself a little brigand today, Nesia (which is short for Amnesia, which is what I wanted origionally but found the name already taken). She’s going to end up as my carpenter (hopfully). So that’s 6 characters once again, though they’re all fairly small, the brusier sitting at level 24, the dirge at 20, the conj. at 8 and the brigand at 5. Then of course there’s the warden at 70 and the coercer at 63, fairly well rounded if I do say so myself. With nothing much to do until November I’ve pleanty of time to work on each one of them as well as crafting.

Cordanim is gone on a vacation for this week, so I don’t expect I’ll see him around, I hope he has fun though. Pascolino seems to be enjoying the smaller swashbuckler that he made to play on the server. It’s nice to hear about him enjoying the game without the pressures that are associated with a higher level main.

Made about 10p on the broker over the past few days, so I’m sitting comfortably at about 30p, which is just fine for me I don’t need a whole lot of money. Eventually you reach a point where there’s just simply nothing to buy anyhow, and you’re just crafting with it or buying pretties for alts, etc. It’s fun, lately I’ve gotten much more out of the game by simply doing smaller quests, and enjoying the basics of the game, no pressure.