When Adam “Ferrel” Trzonkowski mentioned that he was writing a second book, this one about raiding, I was eager to read it and see what he had to share with everyone. He offered to send people a free copy with the understanding that we would write a review, whether it was good or bad. If you’ve never taken the time to sit down and actually think about raiding, or if you’re perhaps just getting started, then this book will have a lot of great information for you. If you have done any length of raiding in the past but want to brush up on some terminology then this book may also capture your fancy. While I didn’t personally learn anything new, I did appreciate having a different perspective about things. I spent most of the book realizing that guilds are incredibly different in the way that they handle raid situations, and Adam’s writing reflects this. I didn’t always see eye to eye on his discussions (especially Chapter 2.1 The Raid Leader) but I could appreciate where he was coming from. I do feel that the book is quite specific to the games that Adam has played and has experience with – for example only portions of this book would be useful if you were going to raid in EVE Online. A larger portion would be useful if you were raiding in EverQuest II, where the ‘trinity’ is used (tank, dps, healer). While it’s not exactly common to find games that swerve away from this method of game-play, it does happen some times. Raiding in Wurm is nothing like taking down an encounter in WoW, but in the end it’s all people coming together for a common goal, so there’s still information that pertains.

I appreciated the chapters dedicated to loot distribution, I think that raiders some time think their preferred way is the one right way, when in actuality there are many ways to handle this and they all have their up sides and down sides. It’s all unique to the sort of guild you’re in, too. Chapter 5 (The Tools of the Raider) was a fantastic overview that I wish every raider (old and new) would read. I think a lot can be learned from taking advantage of the items he lists – but again this is completely based on the idea that you want to “be the best raider you can be”. Raiding doesn’t have to be a second job, and if you’re not having fun then you may want to take another look at why you’re doing it (there’s a Chapter for that too).

Over all the book was easy to understand, and gave great insight to how a hardcore raider thinks which I think is much more valuable than the actual rules of raiding.

The book is beautifully illustrated by Amanda “HolyDust” Martin, and really adds a lot of character. You can find it in the amazon store as a kindle book if you’re interested in reading it yourself. Thank you Adam for giving me the opportunity to share your book with my readers, and I wish you all the best with its future!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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It was time. Ninga and I headed to steamfont where we waited for the blimp to arrive to take us to Argath. There’s a platform up on a hill not far from the Ak’Anon entrance and when the blimp is about to enter the zone you’ll see a zone wide message indicating it’s on the way. If you don’t want to travel there the ‘old fashioned’ way you can use a guild portal (if you happen to belong to a guild in any case) or you can see if you can hitch a ride from a druid or wizard who have unlocked their travel spells. For me the entire blimp ride was nostalgia of boat rides. We giggled as the blimp slowly came our way. It started off looking so small in the distance but when it finally docked and revealed its true size we were in awe.

Levitation doesn’t work in Argath, so if you zone with it on and expect to just drop off the side and calmly float to your destination, don’t do it. The view reminded me a LOT of the Moors of Ykesha in EQ2. You are confronted by alien type NPC on a long dock and meander your way further in to find the NPCs you’re looking for. Alt W (the ‘find’ command) lists all of the NPC you may be searching for in case you’re like me and unable to find your way.

Because the expansion is only two days old, the zone was absolutely packed. There were more than 150 people all trying to do the same small chain of progression which involves a language quest of the Argathians.

First time visitors to Alaris will want to speak with Atleris, the Council Pinnacle, inside the Council chambers.

The outer areas of the arms and the entirety of the belly are full of hostile creatures. Looters and thieves are found among the Argathians in the arms. And in the belly are the Erillion forces who will attack on sight, as well as the steel masses and floating blades who are enemies to both the Argathians and the Erillion forces.

We picked up the first quest required for language progression, one from Captain Walkath, that required us to fight a few of the Erillion invaders. The problem was that so many other players had the same frame of mind. We found ourselves a little niche and went to work on the small group of mobs before deciding that we would probably have an easier time of things if we waited a little while for the initial rush of players to pass through. The encounters were not especially difficult at this level, our group consisted of monk (Ninga), healer merc, enchanter (myself), and tank merc. Mobs can be partially slowed, but they haven’t been able to be fully slowed for a few expansions now.

We killed one of the 14 mobs we needed and then decided that our time would be better spent continuing our progression of the Underfoot expansion (two expansions old now) so we headed to Pellucid Grotto. I loved what I saw of Argath, it’s just a little too crowded for myself. We’ll be back before too long, I’m certain.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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Yesterday was the release of EverQuest’s 18th expansion, Veil of Alaris. The game was down for 8 hours and servers came back up on time, but that’s not to say that the release was completely flawless, there were a few issues players experienced. The largest one was that unless you purchased VoA you were unable to access your potion belt, something that’s been in game for a little while now and allows players to use potions from within their bags by hotkeying them. With the newly revamped hotkeys something in the code messed up. It’s going to be fixed in a future update though so don’t be too concerned. There were also a few issues people had with the changes to guild rosters, you can name ranks and assign them properties much like you can in EQ2 (and I am so glad to see it).

My first day playing VoA wasn’t spent IN VoA so much as exploring the features that had been added. The biggest change for me was the one to hotbars. Players are now able to open 10 hotbars at once, and customize them in a large number of ways. You can resize them into different rows and as big or small as you’d like. This makes reading my hotbars much easier, as before the lettering on the buttons was so tiny I could barely make it out. I picked up a new mercenary, one that comes with the VoA expansion, pictured above. The swinetor salver is a healer mercenary, and played just fine alongside my shadowknight in Ssra (the level 55 hot zone).

I’m really glad that mounts no longer glide to a stop, they have an instant stop-go motion, something that was released a few patches ago and had nothing to do with VoA. The games population (at least on my server) is still nice and busy, which I was happy to see.

I’m hoping that today I get to explore some of the zones and get into some trouble. We’ll just have to see. My 90 enchanter now has 5 more levels to climb, although from what I saw in chat channels last night some players already hit the new level cap. Since there’s so much to do in EQ I don’t really see it as being much of a problem, they can grind out the rest of their EQ days working on progression and alternate advancement, where it’s quite normal to see players with upwards of 5,000 aa.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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Today the 18th EQ expansion goes live, Veil of Alaris, and I’m REALLY excited about it. First of all kudos to SOE for putting forth the dedication to keeping this game going so many years down the road. There are a lot of great features coming with the expansion, and I think it will help update the game quite a bit.

Maximum level increased to 95.
New alternate advancements
Features a brand new continent, hidden behind a veil of mist
12 new zones as well as new content such as quests, loot, monsters and raids
New guild halls located in guild neighborhoods
Revamp of the hotbars; 12 buttons per bar
Ability to link items and clickies directly to hotbar including from inside bags!
Email items
Customizable guild ranks

I’m excited about the level cap increase, and looking forward to exploring the new zones on both my enchanter and my necromancer (both who are at the current cap of 90). The fact that hotbars will FINALLY have 12 buttons per bar is a big deal to me, and the idea that clickies will be able to be directly linked is amazing, especially since there are just so dang many of them.

What are you most excited about? Let me know in comments! Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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It’s a pretty exciting time to be a gamer. There are a whole lot of games and expansions all releasing around the same time. I don’t keep as up to date as I should on the non-mmo gaming front, so my list is probably a bit more sparse then some others out there. What am I looking forward to? Well, there’s the EQ expansion, Veil of Alaris that releases in November. I’m really excited about this expansion, it’s just beautiful. EQ2 is also putting out their ‘expansion’ (I use the term loosely) Age of Discovery. I’m a lot less excited about this update then I am about the EQ expansion. There’s not a lot of actual content coming with it, although with mercenary and a new class I will say that casual players should be pretty happy. I’m holding off on any other comments until I can actually get my feet into it because until then it’s just speculation. I’d be much happier if this was coming as a free update rather then a paid expansion. World of Warcraft has their 4.3 patch coming out (supposedly) some time in November, which I am also pretty excited about. I’m looking forward to new dungeons, new gear sets, and I’m really looking forward to appearance gear for once. I’m even looking forward to the raid finder tool, which I think will be fantastic for casual players who don’t have the time to devote to finding a raid guild – or those of us who are in tiny little 3-people guilds who haven’t been able to raid yet.

I did decide to sign up for a year of WoW in order to get Diablo 3 for free, along with the mount that will be released in 4.3. The game has enough casual aspects to it that I find it quite relaxing along with my adventuring in EVE Online. SWTOR release date is just around the corner, but not being a fan of sci-fi I haven’t pr-ordered and I’m not really sure if I’ll play. I know my other half will be picking up the game and I’ll probably just live vicariously through him and his adventures. Until the peer pressure becomes too great, of course.

Skyrim is one of those non-mmo games that are certainly on my radar, and I do plan on picking up once it releases. The game just looks beautiful and it’s been a while since I’ve played a single player. I don’t really think the sims 3 counts. Speaking of, I’ve been having loads of fun with their latest ‘pets’ expansion that released this month. It’s a great game when I’m not in the mood for anything multi-player.

So what are you most excited about? Perhaps nothing coming out tickles your fancy at all? Let me know in comments below!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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Any time I find myself in a video game, chances are I hear a discussion about how game X used to be good and popular, but then event Y took place and KILLED IT. I chuckle to myself, wondering how these people could possibly think a game is ‘dead’ if even a single player is enjoying it (as long as the game isn’t shutting down). Yesterday, that game was EQ1 – and if you take a look at the screen shot above, I think you’ll see it’s anything but dead. This is just one of many populated servers, happens to be Drinal, the server I play on. Of course the game isn’t at its prime any more and after so many years that’s completely understandable, but it’s certainly no where near dead.

What keeps people playing this ‘ancient’ game? Is it the amount of time they’ve already invested in it? The difficulty involved in mastering it? Friends? Fear of change? I suspect it’s a combination of all kinds of reasons, and I imagine that the type of player still playing EQ1 as opposed to those who play more recently released MMOs may be different.

I suppose I’m just tired of people making assumptions about games that they personally no longer play and haven’t for some time. A game may be dead to you – but there’s a lot of others who still enjoy it on a daily basis. One thing I’m worried about with the next EQ expansion adding guild halls is that this central gathering location which you see above as the guild lobby will become less populated – and I think it’s REALLY important to have a location like this – unlike EQ2 where everyone is constantly hiding away in their halls and homes and you can play the game without ever seeing a gathering of this size. I’m hoping since players gather like this to share buffs and timers don’t tick down that it will remain as it is. A focal point for social happenings. We will just have to see.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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I’m really excited about the next everquest expansion, called Veil of Alaris. Above is a video for Argath, Bastion of illdaera, one of the new zones that come with it. There are a handful of wonderful changes also coming with the expansion including:

• Guild halls with trophies
• Resizeable hotbars
• 12 buttons per hotbar
• The ability to link items and clickies directly to the hotbar, including from inside of bags
• Customizable guild ranks
• A new guild rank system
• The ability to mail items in game

The level cap will also be increasing from 90 to 95, and that means new spells and aa. There are 12 new zones, and if you have an active EverQuest account and want to sign up for the beta, you can visit the sign up page here. You must log in to your active EverQuest account in order to sign up. I have to admit, I’m more excited about this then the EQ2 expansion. Fingers crossed that I’ll get into the beta and when the NDA drops I’ll have some interesting stuff to share with readers.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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Thanks to the 45-day ‘welcome back’ program that SOE is currently running, a few of my friends (and I) have returned to our roots in EverQuest. It wasn’t that long ago that we were playing and doing the 12 year anniversary tasks, but we had taken a bit of a break (and then the nasty business happened with SOE being down for a few days). It feels good to be back, and as you can see by my screen shot above, there’s a lot of other players who feel exactly the same way. The screen shot is of the Drinal server, which is where I play.

There’s also some exciting news for EverQuest in the future, as they prepare to start their ‘Hardcore heritage’ event once more this year. Basically this is where they take numerous old world zones of lower levels and adjust them to be end game zones with all new loot tables and mechanics. Here are the details to the event this year:

Are you ready to revisit some of your favorite classic zones and experience all new challenges? Well Hardcore Heritage is almost here!

Hardcore Heritage, one of our yearly events where we revisit some older zones and update them to provide a more challenging environment, is coming to a server near you soon! Spread over the months May to July, you’ll have an opportunity to visit the old stomping grounds with entirely new foes to battle.

The schedule for events is as follows:

5/23 – 6/12

• Blackburrow (Level 80)
• Cazic Thule (Level 80)

6/13-7/3

• Lower Guk (Level 85)
• Unrest (Level 85)

7/1-7/21

• Crushbone (Level 90)
• ?????????? (Level 90)

This year we’re presenting two newly revamped zones, Crushbone and one other yet to be announced. Nostalgia and loot will abound, make sure you stop by and visit all the old spots from Trainer Hill to Emperor Crush’s throne room itself! There’s even a new challenge for two to three groups of players, can you defeat Emperor Crush and his stalwart allies?

I’m pretty excited, I have participated in the event previous years and it’s always a lot of fun. It’s also nice to see players gathered together in zones instead of always running missions which has been the fad as of late – especially with the bonus experience in place. Ultann has returned to the game and we’re currently attempting to help him level from 85-90 so he can partake in more of the House of Thule content. It’s a slow process, but at least he has bonus experience to make use of this week.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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I love house items, it doesn’t matter what game I play (although to be honest, only so many games I play actually have housing). House of Thule (the latest EQ expansion) introduced player-housing to the game and while there are a lot of merchants as well as the market place that give players some creative purchases in which to build their homes, there are very few quests in game (yet) that reward players with house items. There are a few! Don’t get me wrong. My first experience with these quests was actually the April Fools day quest – it rewarded the mini jester for my home. Yesterday I discovered three more quests while browsing the forums, including the quest for the action figure pictured above.

The incredibly neat thing about these quests is that the house items have very detailed lore explanations added onto the item. What I mean is that when you examine the item they have two tabs, one is the general description, and the other is a lore tab with the details. The action figure pictured above also happens to have adjustable poses, talks, and plays music. It is one of two rewards from a quest involving The Nonad Brothers which you can begin in Sunrise Hills. You also receive an awesome looking replica of a shield with the Qeynos crest on the front of it. The quest involved one of the older ones available in game, collecting taxes from random NPC through Qeynos. My favorite part was when I had to collect taxes from one disgruntled Halfling – he actually stole the tax money from another, and made me tell him that I was a gnoll loving weakling unfit to comb his feet. After I gave him a good chuckle he kindle handed over the coin.

There are two other housing quests as well, but I won’t get into details about them in this post, going to save that for another day. Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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- All EverQuest servers have been brought down for an emergency zone crash fix. We apologize for the inconvenience.
*** Items ***

- Newbie weapons on Progression servers will now start at 60 percent of their normal stats and gain 10 percent per unlocked expansion.
- The Jagged Orc Slayer Sword will now behave like other newbie weapons on Progression servers.
- Merchants have raised their sale prices on many potions that were mistakenly re-priced. They have not changed the price they will pay for them.
*** Quests & Events ***

- Fixed tradeskill combines for Felwithe Defender, Pine Scout, and Pine Druid armor on Progression servers.

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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