I joined a raid guild, almost. Ok I suppose the better word is that I’ve got prospects with a raid guild. They raid 6 days a week - but you’re not required to attend every one of them. I believe attendance is 20% required of the ones scheduled, which sits far better with me. My issue with playing the troubador has always been the fact that it’s near impossible to get groups. I’m required on raids, but heaven forbid should I see the inside of an instance more then once. However. I’m willing to give things another shot, and we’ll see how it goes.

It’s been a long time since I’ve raided in EQ2. I have raided PR and Thuuga with the troub, but only a few times, and we never completed PR at the time. My gear is not horrible, but it’s certainly nothing to get excited over. I have missed raiding, a great deal and I’m excited about things this time around. We’ll just have to see how it goes. I have a lot of other obligations, and the guild is aware of that.

So of course the first thing I set out to do was at least get the fabled version of my epic, since I will eventually have a very real chance at getting the mythical version. I headed to Chardok with a trusty shadowknight - and that’s it. Crazy? Yes, yes we were. We managed to duo to all of my clickies in the zone, including the one in the water by the barracks. How did we manage it? Well, thank goodness for divine aura and feign death number one. We trained all the way to the area with the barracks, then the shadowknight ran to the bridge where I needed to drop, fell down, cast divine aura, which was just enough time for me to snag the clicky I needed down there. He  died, and I evac’d to safety before everything ate me. As any good scout would do, of course. The items I needed in Korocust (also known as the-zone-no-one-goes-to-any-more-unless-it’s-for-epics-since-they-changed-the-zone) were easy. Now I’m off to CoM with no idea if I can solo getting to my mandolin or not. Maybe I’ll get lucky and run into someone adventuring that way. If all else fails, I’ll move the coercer to the zone, clear the way, then relog to get it. After that comes a journey to the temple of the white lady - and then begins the real epic, of harvesting 10 xegonite clusters.

That’s the part I want to get to today. We’ll see.

Silhouette wandered around Gorowyn almost aimlessly, just watching. Tucked into corners here and there were angry citizens, taking out their frustrations on one another. That was one of the reasons she’d moved from the almost too quiet town of Freeport, to the bustling commerce city of Gorowyn any how. She thrived on the entertainment. Along her walk, someone tugged at the sleeve of her gown, insistent that she stop.

“What..” She groaned inwardly. No doubt the coward wanted some coin, or some food, or just.. something.

“Do you wish to spread the hate?” Spoke the raspy voice of whomever had grabbed her arm.

“Spread.. the hate?” She puzzled slightly, wondering if this was some new phrase the kids were using and she hadn’t quite caught on to yet.

“Y-Yes.. Misstress… seek out the Priest at the Innoruuk Spires, in Neriak. There you can pledge to spread the hate.. ”

“Well. Alright then. Thanks.” She deftly plucked her sleeve out of the grimy hands, and decided to head to Neriak. Spread the hate? Sure why not.

When she got there she found she was not the only one who had such ideas in her head. There was a line up to speak with the priest. She tapped her foot and shuffled impatiently from one side of the room to the next, waiting for her turn. Once it came, she was given a task.

“Collect rocks.” Was all the priest said, and pointed one bony finger to the rocky walls of Neriak where gems sparkled faintly.

“Rock.. right.. ” Silhouette almost bit back a chuckle, thinking it was some sort of joke. Collect rocks? That was going to help spread the hate? She thought for a minute longer. Well, perhaps they were going to use these rocks to throw at people! Yes, that would spread the hate for sure. No one liked having rocks thrown at them. She nodded to the priest, and went on her way, deftly plucking rocks from the walls and gathering them together in her skirt. Her finger nails were bleeding and broken by the time she returned, the gems having cut her fingers in numerous places. She would have been seething, were it not for the fact that she knew she was doing Innoruuk’s work.

“Bury, the rocks. Outside” The priest pointed a long bony finger towards Darklight Woods.

“You’ve got to be kidding..” Silhouette spoke without thinking. “You just made me collect all these rocks, and now, you want me to bury them, and some how, this is going to spread the hate?” She frowned deeply, and the priest just waved her off.

Well. What else was there to do. She left Neriak, her feet trudging up dirt and dust and rocks. Headed to Darklight Woods, where she found the perfect spots to bury her rocks. All 12 of them. She wished she’d brought along a shovel of some sort, but hadn’t exactly counted on THIS when the offer was presented to her. As the sun started to set, she buried the final rock, and wiped her hands on her grimy dress, that would need a solid washing. She trudged back to the priest in Neriak, and waited her turn, again.

“I buried the rocks. How does that spread hate?” She questioned.

The priest just looked to her.

“Here. Have a fire place. They’re on sale right now, at Wizzlewoop’s-Emporium-For-Marvelous-Wonderful-Things-That-Whirl-Glow-And-Go-Bang.” The priest grinned at her, and Silhouette almost thought for a brief moment she saw a gnome behind those eyes. It couldn’t be…

The fire place was thrust in her hands. Heavy. She dropped it on the floor, fuming, and cast a quick gate spell, enveloping herself and the fire place. Once she’d gotten it situated in her house, she figured it was free after all, Silhouette stood, and burst out laughing.

She supposed in the end, the quest had been completed after all. If she ever got her hands on that grimy little priest.. well.. there was certainly a lot of hatred started right there…

(( Today is GU45, and so in preparation I had to complete the evil quest that rewards you with the house item pictured above, the counterpart to the good aligned one which also gives you a fire place that I’d completed some time ago. They’ll be removing it (the quest) with today’s update, so be sure to finish yours up if you haven’t yet! ))

I started off the night playing my coercer. I had plans of leveling her to 78 - which should have been easy, seeing as I was only 20% away. I headed to Jarsath Wastes, to finish some faction quests there. I’m still trying to obtain her gate hammer. However, after working on one of the quests for no more then 10 minutes - I was invited to join Siege and a contested Mayong kill - with my 74 templar, who has been on the final stage of soulfire literally, forever.

Of course I jumped at the chance. When would I ever see Mayong again and actually get to kill him? Oh, I’ve killed him before, don’t get me wrong. I’ve done Mistmoore’s Inner Sanctum numerous times but never with the templar who was the only one of my characters to actually require the kill. There are three versions of Mayong you can kill for your Soulfire update. One is contested Mayong who spawns in the Castle. The other, is of course the MMIS Mayong, instanced. The third is in the Tunarian Throne room - which I have never been to.

Contested Mayong has three aoe’s that hurt. One has a power drain, two stun. We two grouped it, and everyone was level 80 except me at level 74. I was the only healer for my group and by the end (there are adds, bats and vampires) I was running low on power - but we did it. Or rather, Siege did it and I healed my little halfling heart out. I out healed the MT templar, too. Go figure.

So now Petites has her new shiny, and oh it’s so shiny. Yes, I know it’s an expansion too late, but I’m still proud that I got it.

I know with epics out it trivializes these Soulfire weapons. I’m still proud of all the hard work I put into the weapon though. It was a LONG painful series of quests. I have other (all) alts who are on various stages, but Petites I can say completed it. It’s funny. Petites is also my “original” main. She has her prismatic 1.0 where I had to kill Darathar. I also was on Najena for that quest. I did it with Allure, an Australian guild. The Godking weapon, I completed on my warden. Claymore, also on the warden. Epics, I have yet to start on anyone. We’ll see how that goes. I’m thinking coercer, but one can never tell. The templar is just not something I can level up through RoK content. Especially not solo. It would take me a year. The idea of grinding out all those faction quests (again) is just… leaves me with a horrible feeling inside. So I imagine she’ll stay lower level for quiet some time. She even has her Thuuga ring already completed (the fabled one quested in Kylong Plains) but needs more levels before she can wear it.

On an unrelated note, I moved Silhouette to Gorowyn. She now owns a 5 room house, and it’s absolutely huge. The rent is only 5g a week, no status. I had no idea, but the city also has a port to Kylong Plains. It’s got a carpet to sinking sands, which can access Freeport and Neriak. It’s also got a griffin to butcherblock, which means I can access everything, easily. To move, all I did was talk to two people, one in Freeport, and then one in Gorowyn. It was far too simple, but I suppose some times simple is good. Looking forward to decorating it and seeing what I can come up with.

Who doesn’t want to be a billy doll, reward from the 4 year /claim and when you don’t want to be a billy doll, you can shrink yourself by 40% with the item and /hide it. Works wonderfully. Arysh quested in Kylong plains most of the day yesterday and I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s too much fishing required. Fishing is quite possibly the only skill I’ve never worked on with any character. I’ve stumbled into two quests that require it so far with chains after them that I can’t complete because ew. Who wants to fish.

On the flip side of that. I had read and was understood in beta that you could still complete some faction quests as a crafter, and even get your sokokar if you were not a high level adventurer. So I decided to put it to the test. The dock-side quests for crafters went off without a hitch, my 57 necromancer (70 sage) received her sokokar with no issues.

However.

Then she managed to snag the quest from Greenblentus in Teren’s Grasp called “New Lands, New Profits”. It gives you faction (on completion) for both of the major (there are more, I know) faction in the Fens of Nathsar, turning them non-agro. The issue is, that to complete this quest, you have to run around in the fens. I’m 57, believing this was an alternate rout for me to complete the faction I needed to at least be non-agro to the watch, so I can start faction writs. At 57 running past the agro guards of the watch is not easy. I did manage to fandangle my way up there, and grab the sokokar post at the same time. I got my quest update, a little crate on the right hand side JUST before you enter the gates of the watch.

The next update? Along the banks of the river just East of Rillis. I’m screwed. Not only does everyone in Rillis want to eat me for breakfast (dang gnomes!) but the country side is filled with mean nasties as well. I tried to find this box on Arysh, since she’s done the adventure portions and is no longer agro, but I couldn’t find the crate I needed.

After this, two more crates. They probably want me to travel to the center of some other agro city.

So how am I going to try to get around this? Well, thankfully, killing one sort of iksar will make the sarnak at the watch non-agro to me. So I’m going to have Shadowgeist smush one for me. The next issue? I have no idea if I can get the writs as a level 70 crafter - I think - that they start at 72. I don’t mind leveling. And why am I going through all this trouble to begin with?

The advanced sage books are going from anywhere of 1-5p on my server. This faction will let me buy them for 10g and some change each. The books are no trade, so you have to faction for them yourself. As a 57 necromancer, thankfully I can still group with 72’s, but the quests for faction (adventurers) are level 68+ and I can’t do them. I understand that the game is a mixture of crafting and adventuring, and it is sort of exciting getting hit for 15,000 as a lowbie wandering around. I’m basically just trying to avoid a price gouge on books since I’m already paying one on raw materials not to mention fuel.

So RoK is very much all about the faction. I like that aspect of it though, makes things pretty exciting.

Goudia in Everfrost, fighting off the Numbnuts Numbfoot

First of all, eeks, it was announced earlier today that EQ2 (and forums and what not) will be down for a full day, 24 hours. Starting on Tuesday September 24th. No time given as of yet. Not just EQ2 but all SoE games. That sucks. I am sure that people will be upset over it. That’s a long period of time to be game-less if you play at all. So I’m sure lots of blogs will be updated and people will be dusting off those ‘other’ video games that they play. It’s of course an understandable reason for being down, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.

Ok, second of all, Cordanim, tagged me for this new style of meme on which races should be aligned to which classes. (Or in Cord’s words, who should play what). Well. My opinion on the matter is pretty simple. I hate being restricted. I think that anyone should be able to play anything. Of course base stats would differ due to the racial abilities (exactly as they are now, with ogres having more strength then elves for example) but I think that having specific races only being able to play specific classes sucks. I’ve played both methods, in EQ2 there are no restricts besides good and evil, and even then the line can be blurred as you betray. However, in WoW (gasp, I said the dreaded word) races are very strict towards which class they can be. I hated the restricts. What if I wanted to be a orc paladin (or any other combination). People are not restricted in real life (these days at least.. they shouldn’t be..) as to what they choose for their profession, especially not based off of race. May seem like an odd analogy but that’s the best I can come up with. So I can’t really do a full write up like he’s done with his post, aside to say that why have restrictions at all. Everyone wants to be unique, and no one wants to all have to be restricted to the same race if they’re playing a particular class.

In game.. I’m doing heritage quests on Goudia. At least at this exact moment I am camping the three named needed by the Eye for Power HQ. It’s boring. But the guild is almost level 24, and then it’s just one more to be able to purchase some new guild status items from the merchant. We’ve been working really hard on it lately, and it’s great to see. Aside from working on the old HQ’s that I haven’t bothered with (once you do them the first time you sort of loose the excitement) I’m also doing tome quests. Lots and lots of tome quests. I adore them (as always) and eventually maybe I’ll finish a few collections off on numerous characters. Or if I ever settle down to a character and not 10. We’ll see how it goes!

This new quest UI from EQ2 Questlist is a handy little mod

If you’re anything like me, you like to customize your UI as much as you do your characters. It doesn’t matter if you use default or any other sort of mod, your user interface has as many or as few hotbars as you particularly like, it’s got everything arranged the way you specifically play, and I have to say, some times it’s the less-noticed but still valuable mods that really stick with me.

The one that I’ve most recently added to my UI is a quest journal mod, and it may not seem like much - unless you are an avid quester. The EQ2 Questlist site has been up for some time, but isn’t a quest walk through site like the rest of them out there. So what does it do? It keeps track of every quest in the game, where to get it, what level it is. What’s more, is you can create an account, and mark down the quests you’ve completed (as well as started) and keep track of your quest record. In the past, you had to do this out of game, or painstakingly slow, without really looking at your journal. But with the new mod, which you can get here you just click and input the quests that actually show up in your journal under completed and started. You can also search their data base from the journal browser, see how many quests you’ve completed in game without having to move over to Eq2players, and various other small nifty options. I love it.

I like being able to see that I have 11/33 L&L quests completed. I like to see which ones I’m missing without having to draw up huge graphs and charts. I like knowing there are 53 total quests in a particular zone, and what all their names are, and comparing them to which I have done and which I have not done. Again though, this is NOT for quest walk throughs. It’s just a way to keep track of statistics. Like a raider may keep track of their parses to see improvements.

So if you’re a quest person at all, and you’re looking for a few little spiffy toys to play around with, and you like to keep track of the quests you’ve done, be sure to give this very simple UI a try. It’s nice to find a little treasure like this every so often.

By far one of the best quests I’ve done

Yesterday was another fun day in EQ2, and of course I stumbled over one of the best quests I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing. Now, Cordanim has some pretty nice walk throughs and information posted on the two starter quests to get to this instance, one here and then the other one here. I couldn’t figure out if he ever got around to writing about the third quest, which is inside the prison itself.

If you’re a quester to any extent, I highly recommend this chain of quests. The first one seems quite boring (I had to hunt from treasure from the beaches by the druid rings way out to the island by the lighthouse, on the other side of the zone), the second quest is fun but you’ll want a walk through if you’re impatient. The third quest.. makes everything worth while. You are sent to the prison to free the admiral. This zone does not look like any of the other zones out there. It’s a boat, docked at an island. There’s a huge metal cage type structure in the center of the island, and it’s surrounded by rujarkian orcs along with some dead pirates (gnomes none the less). Your mission (should you choose to accept!) is to run up to the (locked) doors, killing everything in your path. Letting your two gnome companions blow up the door (literally) and making your way inside, finding the key to unlock the admiral, and killing a named afterwards. Then escorting them both back to the awaiting ship.

How exciting is that. While you’re there, don’t forget to pick up the Bootstrutters guide to Ro (a book that I didn’t even know existed), one can never have enough house items. There’s also a pretty nice quest for adventurers to complete while they’re inside. Don’t make the same mistake I did though (unless you want to do the instance a second time) and kill the named to the right of the fire place first. He’s needed in the second portion of the quest, and he’s not of much use if he’s already dead. So you’ll want to head to the left of the fire place, and get the keys from the dead gnome. Unfortunately the orc prisoners all escape their cells when you do that, and before you know it you’re knee deep in some sort of orc riot (as posted above). Qutey had a little difficulty with the zone to be honest. It’s flagged as heroic though the mobs are single target down arrows, there are a whole lot of them. I’m not sure if the zone scales, but it seems to be great for those level 22-27 or so. You’re rewarded with some coin, three items (two belts and a weapon) +50 faction with the citizens of maj’dul, and of course experience / aa. Not to mention you get to explore a really fantastic zone with an amazing story line behind it.

The quest came out around the DoF period, so it’s been around for quite some time. I don’t know why there isn’t more emphasis on quests like this. I’d never actually done it before, though I have heard the odd person here and there talking about it.

I’ll probably be doing a lot of crafting for the next little while, maybe some harvesting. I’d love to be able to get my characters a little higher (Goudia specifically, sitting at 37 weaponsmith), we’ll just have to see how it goes.

Just out of interest, I checked out my 4 level 70’s to see where they were at quest-wise

So the image above is my four level 70’s (I have 10 characters that I consistantly play) and where they stand in their quest rankings. Since I know my characters, it’s not difficult for me to tell the order they go in. The first character listed is Stargrace the illusionist. She ranks 33rd for questing illusionists on Antonia Bayle. I spent some time checking the leader rankings and the top characters don’t even play any more. The second one, with the least amount of quests, is of course Misako. She was power leveled through most of her EQ2 levels, and I’d done very few quests on her. Stargrace has her MoA and important quest lines, Misako has barely done anything. Most of her questing was done in the smaller levels, before I started power leveling her. The third one listed, is Dasie, the inquisitor.

Now Dasie has the most quests completed of all (and also ranks 33rd for quests completed by inquisitors) and there’s a good reason for this. She was my very first character ever in EQ2 (although she was actually named Qutey at the time before I moved her through a bunch of servers). She hasn’t done a whole lot of the newer quests. She does have her SoD, but she does not have claymore. She does have her MoA but does not have Godking. She hasn’t actually done a lot of collection quests (which count towards your total quests on Eq2players, but not on the total if you look in game).

The final one listed is of course Arysh, my fury. She was my “old main” for the longest amount of time. She also has her claymore, MoA, and Godking all completed. Those are long chains of quests and they make a good portion of the total counts. There are a lot of fury on the server, so being 71st in the rankings is not that bad (the rankings include characters of all levels by the way, not just level 70).

So that’s 2,527 quests from my four “main” characters. Lets see about the rest of them…

• Qutey - 226
• Faydai - 281
• Ishbel - 101
• Goudia - 378
• Sensual - 60
• Yamini - 152

So that’s 3,725 quests completed, not including the 20+ characters I’ve gotten to 20-30 and then deleted. Wow. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Although - there are over 4,000 quests in game. So I’ve not even reached the number that some single characters have. There are of course quests that people gravitate towards. Like the tome quests if you’re big on books for your home. L&L for the mastery smites and house items. The “big ones” like heritage quests and signature quests. How many people actually spend time doing any of the smaller “lesser known” quests though. . . .

Ahh I remember this quest well, for level 15 (way back in the day) it was a very hard quest to complete - but worth it!

As I ran around finishing off some of Qutey’s Antonica quests, I almost grimaced when I saw this old one pop up again. It was given as a mob drop, both a Commonlands and Antonica version. The Bootstrutter’s Adventure Pack used to be the most amazing bag when I first started the game, and people used to sell them on the broker for a lot (well, what was a lot back then) of money (they’re lore, but not no trade). It’s a 10 slot bag, doesn’t even give you any weight reduction, but when you’re new, you’ll take whatever you can get. It was a trip down memory lane as I worked on the quest. I remember thinking back to the days when it was hard. Of course now that Qutey is level 24 pretty much all of Antonica is grey to her, but when most people got the quest (level 15-ish) it made you run into some pretty dangerous areas.

Qutey Patootie, my level 24 monk, bravely fighting in the Tower of Bone, in Darklight Woods

I’ve posted in the past about my methods of leveling. They typically involve the grind / boxing method. Where I have a level 70 mentored down to the lowbie and then just rip through zones destroying everything in my way. I do chains of quests of importance, or those that I know have great rewards and experience, but for the most part end up avoiding half of the content out there. So I created a character who had the capabilities to solo, but who I would not rush up the levels with my typical power leveling method. I wanted something that could tank, and have methods of escape, as well as moderate dps. Something that did not have to rely on a group ever, but who if I eventually got high enough, could tank for my own groups.

And so Qutey Patootie, my fae monk, was created. I’ve had her for quite some time now, and I rarely ever play her. Since I’d been feeling my typical restlessness in game, I decided to dust off her wings and do some adventuring. She is twinked out with mastercrafted armor (not jewelry though) as well as weapons, and she does have a few adornments that I tossed up on her. Any coin she has is from her own adventures though, and I think she’s sitting at about 21g. She also has combat experience disabled, and has for quite some time. There’s one thing though. She still levels too fast. How? Well, quest completion experience still goes through. So she’s very slowly been leveling up through discovery of new zones, and quest completions. I’ve mostly hung out in Antonica, though recently I did take her through Darklight Woods to get the quests there done. Even though she’s good aligned the quest givers had no issues talking to her. I had to avoid the guards once or twice (I love the fact that monks not only get FD, but they get invis as well).

She has 191 quests completed at level 24 as of right now. Of course not all of those give aa experience, a few I’ve forgotten to mentor down for and a good portion were from antonica where there were a good deal (before the revamp at least, I have not been there since the revamp, I’ll have to test) that did not give aa at all for completion. It’s difficult to adventure in these “old world” zones when the newer ones are around. Not only are the quests vastly out dated, but the gear is certainly not comparable to what’s out there at all. My monk had been getting by with Antonica quests reward for so long, after completing a few in Darklight Woods I’d nearly replaced all of her old jewelry. It’s a nice break from playing the troubador who’s sitting (stuck) at level 65, as well as the 4 other level 70’s that I’ve got. I managed to barely get Goudia to level 37 weaponsmith before I grew utterly bored of it, so I expect that I’ll play around on the monk for the next little while since it holds my interest. It’s fun reading the quest lines and the history behind everything, something I’ve missed out on in the past. I suppose I was also influenced to bring out my monk due to this post here on Average Joe’s blog, about their new guild “Slow Burn”. I wonder how they’ll manage to stay at level 10 though, seeing as quest turn in experience is so huge of an amount. It’s a very cool idea for a guild, and a great way to experience the game if anyone out there is bored, I’d suggest giving it a try. Of course if you’re not much of a quester you may find it an annoying method to experience the game, but for myself at least I think it’s great.