I was asked by a friend, to decorate their house on the Splitpaw server, if you want to see it in person you can find it in North Freeport, 1 Compassion Rd. The following screen shots are what I came up with. Hopefully they like it as much as I did! It was a lot of fun to make. It’s rare that I have an unlimited budget when it comes to housing, but that was the case for this house. I literally gave them a list of 300 items, and said get me all these.

Standing in the entrance way, Silverstep (Splitpaw version) decked out in colours for Canada day.

Library in the front entrance room

Everyone needs some place to eat!

And a kitchen!

Other end of the kitchen

Downstairs in the basement, a games area, piano, and aquarium

More of the basement

Close up of the aquarium - soon as I get the quest done I’ll be adding fish to it. For now just use your imagination!

End of the hallway in the basement

Heading upstairs

Bedroom

What bedroom would be complete without a little area to get pretty in!

Close up of the bed, complete with dressing area

Outside on the roof top, a garden

Close up of the garden.

Now, the house is still a work in progress, very much so. But in the mean time I think I’ve done a pretty good job on it. Thank you to Eleyn who let me work on this house and put up with running to and from the broker picking up various knick nacks and do-dads that I needed to fill in the blanks!

Now that I’ve got three level 80 characters, and a few level 80 crafters, it was time to decide what to work on next. I’m contemplating between the 75 illusionist, the 74 templar, and the 45 carpenter, 72 woodworker. What I’ll probably end up doing is working on all of them all at once because that’s what I’m so used to doing. Last night I pinged off a few rush order writs on Stargrace and Nostalgia 2.0 dinged guild level 14. One more level to go and we can pick out a guild cloak design (at least the base for one). Exciting? Well, for such a very small guild, I think it is. It’s typically just myself and Kasul in there working on whatever happens to be going on for the day. At level 80 the writs give over 1500 guild status (15k personal) and can be completed in 3 minutes. Far more profitable then running an instance even if you did have a full group.

Once I’d worked on a few writs (I’m fairly close to 30k crafter faction finally with Stargrace as well. Looking forward to being able to shop a little more from the merchants) I decided it was time to work on Silhouette’s house. She owns a 5-room Gorowyn house, which has no status upkeep and is just over 5g a week in coin. Couldn’t really get a better deal then that. I’ve decided the upstairs will be a library, and so I began working on that, slowly. Silhouette doesn’t have nearly the amount of house items and books and nick nacks that my other characters have. She was a heavily power leveled character and solo’d from 55+ using the charm spells coercers get in New Tunaria. Great zone.

So it’s coming along slowly. I need a lot more crafting levels in order to deck out her house the way I’d like to. Including the faction recipes from RoK. Yesterday I did manage to get two carpenter levels though - which places her at level 45. Again, you’d think the one sort of crafter I’d have 80 before all others would have been a carpenter due to the sheer number of houses my characters own and how much I simply love the whole aspect of decorating. Alas, it’s one of the last crafters I’ve tried to level.

So for now I’ll ponder what I want to concentrate on, if anything in specific. If I haven’t mentioned yet, it’s nice to be back in EQ2. I love EQ1, always will, and of course I’ll continue to play it, but there’s just something about EQ2 that draws me back every time to make it my main game. I’m also excited about the events going on this summer and I hope we get a glimpse into what they may be soon.

Yesterday was one of those very busy days in EQ2. It was wonderful, because they don’t happen too often for me. First of all, I teamed up with Kasul from Nostalgia, and he and I (as my coercer mentored) finished off two heritage quests for the guild, the guise of the deceiver, and the fishbone earring. Nostalgia 2.0 dinged 11, 12, and 13. Kasul also killed the tide octopus in Cove of Decay granting him the polished granite tomahawk and a bunch more status.

Once that was done I headed to a few instances, to check out SOE’s recent update that allows you to get guild status on completion of an instance. In other words, the final name gives status now. I did Obelisk of Blight just for fun (the entire run took 15 minutes with three of us) and Crypt of Valdoons. Instances barely anyone adventures in any more. 1203 guild status or so was the reward. Crafting would have been faster.

After those two quick instances a group was formed for Vaults of Eternal Sleep, in Jarsath Wastes. Nothing of significance dropped (besides the mobs) but it was still fun.

After that I headed to the newly revamped Runnyeye - and was sorely disappointed. There were no deaths the entire time (not that I wanted any) except for one pull on the final x2 mob (and we had no mezer so we tanked all the adds plus the x2 at once). The key to the encounter is simple - cure. That’s right, in order to make this encounter infinitely easier healers just have to do their job and cure every single dot that lands on the tank. If you leave a dot on there for longer then the .5 of a second it should be, you’ll wipe. Cure them instantly though and the encounter is smooth as pie - with no enchanter.

The list above is all the loot we got in Runnyeye aside from the final encounter that dropped a fabled bracelet for melee. Arysh looted it all - and promptly transmuted every single piece.

Ouch.

It was either not an upgrade for anyone, or it was a piece of caster gear and we didn’t have a single caster in group. We didn’t see a single master spell drop, and the whole zone left me feeling as though I was power leveling an alt through the original Runnyeye rather then exploring a new dangerous zone. Of course, I was with a team of mythical / vp geared people. Shadowknight tank, a templar, swashbuckler, dirge, assassin, and myself as warden (the only one there still wearing treasured and only level 79). Take your ‘average’ EQ2 player and I’m sure the zone is a lot more challenging.

What did make the zone fun for me were the two quests within it. Too bad they’re not repeatable. You get two house items, the fun bowl of eyes pictured above (more like a pot in size now that I think about it, a cauldron) and a hanging eyeball that I placed upstairs in the garden, because doesn’t that location just scream ‘giant eyeball goes here.’

It was still a great night, and I had a lot of fun. Remembered why I enjoy the game. Tonight is Nostalgia night, and I’m looking forward to that. No reason why I can’t play both games as the whim takes me. I did also managed to get Silhouette a few crafting levels (Ok, by a few I think I mean one) which was nice. The carpenter has been on hold for so long now. Time to get cracking so I can get all sorts of new house item pretties made! Her 5-room Gorowyn house is decidedly empty.

GU 46 came out yesterday in EQ2 and wow was it a big (great) one. I always talk about shinies, and for most people that means new weapons and new armor. Not for me. Nope. It means house items and new quests. So while the update introduced new quests and world events, which also reward some very amazing things - I’m going to talk about the house items in true Stargrace form.

The first one above is “Fae Tavern Shelves” and you can right click that awesome house item and have it pour you a drink. It’s the perfect size for any home.

Oh - wait. Where does it come from?!

That’s right. What wasn’t mentioned in the patch notes was that they added RED shinies to four zones. These shinies you can ONLY see while wearing your crafting epic. Finally. A reward for the crafters. The shiny pieces are lore, so don’t expect to go out harvesting these by the buckets. They also respawn VERY quickly, so if you’re worried about crafters gouging you, don’t be. I saw a few pieces going for not even a plat - and since word is not really out about these shinies yet, expect them to go lower and lower.

The four zones these shinies come from are Barren Sky, Loping Plains, Steamfont Mountains, and Fens of Nathsar. There was talk of another collection being found in Bonemire, but I have not seen any proof of this in the short time I ran around the zone and browsed the forums.

The piano looks much like the blue shiny reward from Mistmoore castle - but this one of course is darker in colour and it also plays music. Each time you click it to play a song, music notes rise out and your house will be filled with various tunes.

My favorite item from the red shiny rewards - is the Norrathian Star Chart. Combine this item with the globe that you can get from faction, and the star chart you can get from blue shiny rewards in Ak’Anon, and you’ve got yourself a nice little set up started.

These house items are completely separate from the other house items added to game - the rewards for doing the storm quests and turning in certain amounts of tickets. I haven’t even looked into those yet aside from the initial quest which opens up the repeatables. No doubt I’ll find time to write about them, too.

Now I have to find room to place all these red shiny rewards. Then decide whether or not I want to do the quests again on an alt so that they too have the rewards. Remember not only does Stargrace own a 5-room Qeynos house, but so does Arysh. Petites owns a 3-room Kelethin home, and Silhouette owns a 5-room Gorowyn home. . . . .

Crazy? Naw..

Woohoo, it’s Friday, which means it’s almost the weekend, it’s also Nostalgia the guild night (North Ro LDoN I believe is our goal) Ironman comes out, and it’s just one of those fantastic days.  That’s my hope, at least. Last night was a hodge podge of smaller things that I decided to take care of in EQ2. First and foremost was preparing for those 4 extra bank slots we’re all going to be getting. The four extra shared slots are not really ‘extra’ per say. What they’ll be doing is combining the four good slots you have with the four evil. Since I have boxes in all 8, they’ll already be filled (I store my rares there, have I mentioned yet how EXCITED I am about this change and having a general area for me to put coin that all my characters can use?) but then there’s also the four extra slots each individual person will get. I typically sort each slot by tier for harvested goods, and this will allow me to have a few extra for general items that take up room (old quest pieces I’m afraid of losing, potions, /claim items that I don’t use right away, those sorts of things).

I also went through my house vaults on a few characters, having not checked them in so long they were growing cobwebs. Put things for sale on the broker which I also had not done in a very long time.

Aside from general cleaning and organizing, my carpenter finally hit level 40! That’s the highest level I’ve ever gotten a carpenter to, and I’ve started more then my fair share. It seems odd, since I have plenty of crafters, and most are high level - that I would have such difficulty with the one crafter I use more then any other crafter. Go figure. Screen shots today are random pictures of Arysh’ 5-room Qeynos house. Her game room and her library which is a constant work in progress. I have not added anything to her house in quite some time and I’m wondering where to start. With a carpenter around it’s a lot easier to plan on what I need and what I’d like as far as furniture goes. Her bedroom and portions of the attic could use a revamp. Even the main room is a little drab these days. Silhouette also owns a three room in Freeport that is drastically bare, having moved her there a few weeks ago and not even gotten past unloading the moving crate. I’ve had a lack of inspiration as far as decorating goes - though I think browsing through the Norrathian Homeshow may help to fix that.

Of course now it’s 15 minutes later since I got side tracked looking through the Homeshow - if you’re into EQ2 housing at all and decorating this is the forum for you. Just some fantastic work there. In specific this post here shows some simply amazing work and dedication to housing. Wow. It’s just, astounding what people think of to do with all the items we have in game. Out of all the games I’ve played, EQ2 handled housing the best. Though EQ1 has guild halls (you can’t decorate them) and Vanguard has ACTUAL houses that you physically build - EQ2 by far has the best array of items and goods that can be placed in your home, both crafted and quested.

Speaking of which, since I’d missed Erollisi Day in EQ2, I spent a little time looking up the house items and purchasing a few (quite a few). Who wouldn’t want perfume bottle, roses, candy, and pillows? There’s also an Erollisi bear that I’d like to get (plushi, of a white polar bear) but he’s 3p on the Najena server, and I may be able to swipe one from a friend instead. We’ll see how it goes.

Be sure to also check out the EQ2 Traders Corner for all the new housing updates, great screen shots of everything crafted, and a little peek at things to come. Doesn’t that place setting just look fantastic?

The day was filled with house items, and you can never go wrong with that. I started talking to an old friend of mine from my Lucan D’Lere days, Krai who plays a brigand. We’ve kept in touch despite me switching games, and servers, and I consider her a great friend. She also happens to know of my obsessive house item collecting passion and casually mentioned to me that she had a spare LoN painting that I could have. Of course I squealed and jumped around my living room in joy - she also mentioned she had a female dwarf mannequin that was sitting unused (also from LoN). Since we can both trade from that platform I logged in and she gave me the painting pictured above. What a fantastic image to have in my house. Of course now I need to design some sort of music area to take better advantage of it. Arysh does not have a piano in her house, unlike Stargrace and Petites. I’m not sure if I actually want to add one yet, or just keep with the smaller instruments, we’ll see.

The dwarf mannequin was actually pleasant to at, mostly because it now displays my newest crafting cloak - no, not the master cloak, but the T6 one that I’d quested for today. One thing I didn’t realize is that you don’t actually physically put the item on the mannequin. It doesn’t act as storage in other words. I have a small crafting area set up in the house (the woodworking station can be seen on the left hand side) and decided to display the cloak (which has a symbol of a bow and arrow I believe.. not too keen on it, it makes me feel like a ranger not a woodworker) for people to see if they ever venture into my house.

The items didn’t stop there, either. I had gotten an email from Rao, of Gestalt Mind, explaining the book quest he wrote about a few days prior. Apparently my site is being picky and not allowing some people to comment. I’m trying to figure it out (with no luck) to fix. Anyhow, I logged into game and saw he was online harvesting, and promptly in true Stargrace fashion began chattering away. Once I find an opening it’s hard to get rid of me, be warned *grins*.

I worked on the crafter tier quests, and finally got to the one I’d been wanting from the start - it rewards you with a book for your house. Not just any book, no, this is Bertox’s health guide.

Is it any wonder the liaison was sick to begin with if she was taking tips from that book on the floor covered in slime?

None the less it’s a fantastic house item and if you don’t mind traveling to and from your home city to sinking sands a few times, you’ll have no issues completing it. Lower level adventurers may have a harder time trying to navigate around a few aggressive cats and snakes, but it’s still completely doable.

Besides chattering with friends, and all of the amazing house items I got today, last night I managed to get Petites (the templar) to level 74 from running quests and turning in a few collections that she’d yet to pick up. I’m hoping to be able to reach 75 tonight so that I can move on to the more interesting RoK zones. We’ll see how that goes. It was double exp weekend this weekend in EQ2, but the message failed to say what levels it was for. I’m not sure that my 70+’s are benefiting, as they typically make the bonus exp weekends for lower levels. It sure didn’t feel like she was getting double the amount in any case - I could be wrong. Tomorrow I’ll spend some time wandering around EQ1 and attempt a few quests, next Friday is another meeting of Nostalgia of course, and the goal is to reach close to level 15. Some have already done that in their eagerness, and I feel as though I’ll be left behind - however, arranging this as a weekly event is to prevent that from happening.

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, no matter what realm you were in (yes, even real life).

Since my foray into EQ1, I decided to get station access activated again. Makes sense now that I’d have access to Vanguard, EQ1, and EQ2. The price is actually worth it, in this case. My WoW account is free for this month, so we’ll see where that goes. I haven’t logged in since Thursday. Hey, I never claimed to be one to settle down in any mmo. I’m slowly getting used to that fact though and not berating myself over it any more. After spending last night in EQ1 (more about that to come in another post) I decided this morning I’d patch my UI, update my maps, and log into EQ2.

Right away I spotted a quest giver next to me in South Qeynos. Closer inspection showed it offered one of the newer quests ‘dispelling the hate‘ which rewarded me with the house item pictured above. A fountain. Perfect for the garden Arysh has in the works. In all the time I’ve played EQ2, the house items are what always seem to get me. I just love them.

There’s idle talk of me leveling up my templar (who’s been 73 forever now) and maybe maybe maybe getting into some raiding with her. I’m not sure if I want to get back into that yet. We’ll see how it goes. Since I’ve limited my play time (by a huge amount) I am reluctant to throw myself into too much right now. Evenings of course are fairly free for me still with no other obligations. I’d also like to finish leveling up my coercer, who’s been sitting at 77 for quite some time. Especially with the revamp to the class incoming in a bit. I read this post that mentioned it gave some sort of house item reward, a book.. so of course now I have to figure out which quest that is and where it came from and how I too can have a new house item. I’ve missed the last couple of events, brew day, valentines, april fools and thus the items that are associated with them. Hopefully I can still pick up a few quests here and there that give items I’d like for my home though. Not to mention the enormous library Arysh has that encompasses a full wall. I want to continue working on that.

As far as ‘playable’ characters, I’ve got the 80 warden (Arysh), 77 coercer (Ishbel), and the 73 templar (Petites). The others (80 troubador, 75 illusionist, 58 necromancer) are sitting on Antonia Bayle still, where they’ll remain unless SOE allows some free transfers. I just can’t afford to move everyone all over the place. It’s difficult, now that I have friends who span across multiple games, multiple servers. How do you pick where to play, and what to do, and who to do it with. If anything, playing various games has taught me to work time management a whole lot.

I’ve already completed the Sword of Destiny quest chain up to the legendary on my templar Dasie, however since I’m playing Arysh hopefully as a constant for the next little while, I decided I should get it done on her as well. It was difficult enough the first time, I did not relish doing it for a second time after a majority of people have already completed it. Yesterday I spent the day collecting my 50 statues, which was not quite so bad. I had Gothun help for a few sections (New Tunaria and Mistmoore Catacombs) and had Shadowgeist and Calreth help me for a few other portions (Kaladim). I met up with a friendly troubador from Fated who helped me into an Acada instance to grab the one there, and in turn I let him into my Unrest instance. It worked out well. It took the majority of the day but I managed to get them all.

After turning them in, I was given my house item which of course I adore. It’s the little statue pictured above on the right hand side of the fire place by the guitar. I spent a lot of time decorating Arysh’ house once the GM’s had returned all of her items to me, eternally grateful of course for all their help.

Her library holds over 80 books, and there’s easily another 20 that I can add. I’m pushing the housing item limit though, so I’ll have to wait until Torrent Knights his level 30 before I can upgrade to a 5-room (Not eager to move back to Kelethin), or just hold out to see what housing is like in RoK. I think I’ve got 273 items, 352 actual at the moment. Some of the books I’ve got still count as house items since they’re pretty old, and of course there’s 33 lore and legend items that take up a chunk of housing space as well. I tried not to clutter the house, but still get all of my items placed inside of it.

Today is MMIS, but we’re going to be missing quite a few people so I’m not sure how it will go. With RoK so close to release it seems like fewer and fewer people are signing up for raids, and I’m a little cautious about what’s going to happen once the level cap goes up. I’ve heard some people saying their raids were cancelled because certain core members wanted to wander through Shard of Fear instead of partake in their raids, which does not sound promising. I expect with the expansion that for a short time there will of course be some upheaval since they’ll be expanding the levels.

Aside from MMIS, and of course the typical weekend adventures to the grocery store, I’m hoping to work on my SoD a little more. I’d like to at least get to the portion that requires me to head into Castle Mistmoore and hunt down pages as well as named. If I can get that far then I know I can managed at least getting the legendary version of the weapon. I don’t think I’ll be killing Mayong any time soon for the fabled, but hey, that’s at least a step in the right direction.

Misako’s entrance, she’s moved to the nut house… Acorn house that is, in Kelethin

I decided it was time for some changes. I’ve learned a few things over the past couple of days. Number one. If you enjoy a class, it does not matter if there is a million of that class around, play it. You’ll have way more fun in game. Don’t give it up just because you think you can fill some other void in the gaming world. Before you know it there will be a million of that other class around too, and then what will you do? Make another character and try to fill that void. It won’t work though. See, that’s what I did with my Dasie. She was a templar. There were LOTS (and still are) of templars around. So I made a fury. Then those were not needed. So I made an illusionist. Then a troubador. Now I have all of these level 70’s and I’m exactly where I was when I started. I betrayed Dasie to an inquisitor for my previous guild, because she would be “needed”. I don’t especially care for the class. Their best class defining skill stifles them so that they can’t heal. I play healers to - you guessed it - heal.

I miss stone skin, and the extra heals that a templar comes with. I miss her hammer pet. I don’t mind giving up some dps for the templar class. I realize that I’ll loose the one piece of relic she still has (pants, sighs. Those are going to be hard to replace!) and all the masters I’ve worked at getting, but with RoK coming in two months, if there was ever a time to betray, now would be it. Spells are all going to get upgrades any how. Don’t play a class simply because it’s in style, needed, or any other reason other then the fact that YOU want to play the class.

So what is the change? Well, I’m going to betray Dasie back to a templar. Friends have donated moonstones to the cause, and I’ve got a 70 sage. I have the templar / inquis set gear. I’ll have to replace her pants. I will be one of a million templars out there, but oh well. I’ll be happier with the character, and that’s what matters.

So what other changes? Well, Misako moved to Kelethin. That’s right, she gave up her (expensive) 5-room house in Freeport, which reminded her too much of the past, and she packed things up and moved to a nut house (or acorn house, for you non-Kelethin folks). The 6-room acorn homes are 2p to purchase, require no guild level, and are 6g a week upkeep. Nice and cheap. The LoN paintings look fantastic against the walls (as pictured above) and as long as I can remind myself that I am NOT a fae, and do NOT have safe fall, I should get along just fine there. I don’t lag in the zone, and I’m closer to everything I need. Misako will have to do some courts faction quests I think though, she could really use call of ro. She could also use her carpet that ports to Shimmering Citadel.

Yes, change is good.

The Rune

Everyone has their thing. Some people like loot, some people enjoy taking down the hardest content in the game, others are questers, completing thousands of quests over the period that they play.

Me, I’m a house item fanatic. Any one who’s read this blog, or knows me in game, knows just how much I adore house items. When I defeated Roost for the first time in the Fallen Destiny Adventure Pack, I didn’t care that we’d defeated the encounter and had access to Chel’Drak. The only thing I had eyes for was the house item you get as a reward for the quest. I loved freeing the Frogloks when they first came out because you get a very sparkly plaque to place on your walls. I’m all about the house items.

The Bear

So of course it’s of no surprise that when LoN hit the game in it’s beta version, I’d want the house items, reluctant to spend a whole lot of money on the booster packs though. I know how addictive it can be. So I managed to trade with some friends, and some were given as gifts. I’m happy that (for now) I’ve got the complete collection of LoN house items - 3 paintings and a card case.

The Muse

A huge thank you to those who helped me out. You all know what it means to me of course. Over time I’m sure I’ll continue to try to scoop up these beautiful house items, and a thank you to SoE of course for adding them to the game. It’s what keeps me playing and interested, these little knick nacks that you can place. Go ahead and tease me for it now!

The Card Case

I dislike how some of the items (ok, so all of the items) are so gigantic, it may cause issues for those who own smaller type homes. Even the card case is a giant sized one, that takes up a good portion of my counter top. I’m planning on creating a table that it can sit on in front of a fire place or something I think in the near future. So many fun items in game, and only so much time to work on obtaining them all!

If you want to check out the LoN items in person, feel free to visit Misako’s 5-room house in North Freeport, 7 Compassion Road. The door is always open and I’ve worked quite hard on the house (it is a work in progress of course, not nearly done). Feel free to send me a tell in game as well, I’m typically around and eager to talk.