Lately I’ve been doing a hodgepodge of things, between real life, gaming, and artwork. So here’s a summery of what I’ve been up to:

EverQuest2: I managed to complete the Everfrost charm quests on all of my ‘main’ characters. Thankfully with the update yesterday, there are now two instances of Everfrost up. I was beginning to feel sorry for those who were of the appropriate level to be in Everfrost while they tried to quest - having random level 80’s swoop in and take their encounters. Whether or not this is tied to the double North Qeynos’ also open, I’m not sure. I also decided I did not like Silhouette’s entrance to her home, it looked like a garden mish mash of crud. So I took the entire thing apart early this morning and rebuilt it into a sales display area. I’m still not exactly happy with it (I suck at building display areas) but it will do for now. I’ve got big plans to create a dining / kitchen area with a wall length fish tank in one of the Gorowyn home windows. I like to work in stages though and I need some rares, so it will be a while before I have anything to show. Short term goals are to work up my smaller crafters, maybe get some levels on my templar, or illusionist (poor Stargrace) or my necromancer. We’ll see how that goes though.

Guild Wars: I played for a little bit last night, traveling around the starter area on my elementalist. Since I have one character who’s left the starter area already without completing everything that was offered I decided that this one would stick around until I cleaned out all the quests. I still think for a game that has no monthly subscription it’s got some fantastic graphics. Could just be me though. Since I spend a lot of my time soloing anyhow, I don’t mind the fact that the game is not a ‘true’ mmo. I expect to play more either today or this weekend, depending on my mood.

Life: I’ve been posting on the Beckett MOG forums often, trying to bring a few readers over. I’m the EverQuest2 correspondence, and while it’s not especially difficult work it does take time to do. I’m super excited about Beckett MOG issue 15 which comes out on the 24th of September - should have my articles in it if all goes as planned (there are four of them). I’ve been learning more about DAZ Studio, and taking a small break from it so that I don’t get burned out. I have a request for a fairy I’d like to get done for a friend, but again it depends on my mood. You can’t force creations (which is why art will never be a job for me, because I hate to feel pressured into doing things). I’ve been debating getting ‘Spore’ since it seems to be all anyone is talking about lately. For anyone who has a PS3 and wants to add me to their friends network, my name there is Stargrace, feel free! I’m still back and forth on the WAR debate as well. Chances are I may buy it when it goes live and play for the first month, but no guarantees. I’m thinking of buying a laptop, I’d really like one and I’ve wanted one for a bit now. Then again, there’s also a new zoom camera lens I want badly, 75-300 (the one I currently have is only 14-45) which means there will be a slight gap between my two lens, but it shouldn’t make too much of a difference. The leaves are all starting to change colours here, and hopefully I’ll get out a few more times to snag some shots of it.

Anyhow, sorry for the rambling, some times, it just has to be done! Safe travels no matter what realm you play in.

Pitney has some issues. Actually, Pitney has a lot of issues. I stumbled across this npc in.. I believe Lakeside County. It’s a quaint little village and wild birds seem to roam around. There’s a field not too far, and it’s been infested with worm. Not just your average worm either, oh no. That would be too easy, lay down a little pest control and you’d be set.

These worms are the people eating sort. They probably chomped on a few of the roaming birds too. I could see a chicken or a small wolf being dinner. Anyhow, Pitney has worm problems to start. So you adventure around taking care of the issue. Looking for materials to lure out the Queen worm. That’s exactly what you want to do after all, right? The little people eating worms are just not enough. Anyhow, you eventually get lead (by Pitney himself) over to the Queen worm, and hopefully don’t get smashed to bits as you take her out. The field is filled with all sorts of other critters, wolves and smaller worms. Having an AoE or two helps take things out fairly fast (or a partner in game to play with, which is my option).

After you take care of the worm incident, Pitney mentions that his prized bird has flown the coop. Or he’s been stolen, or lost, something along those lines. He wants to send YOU (brave adventurer that you are) into the catacombs, to rescue his rare bird.

Oh boy!

So off I went to Ashford Abbey (I love the traveling in guild wars, very easy — but how come when I travel me and my group mate have to disband? Every time it gets more and more annoying, is there a way around this?) I went, to go to the catacombs.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in this little zone. Spiders, and animated skeletons and other little gooey bits of fun hang out there. A lot of the necromancer quest stuff is in there. I’d already been there once to light some ritual candles and again for some other necromancer stuff. I am an elementalist with a secondary profession of necromancer, and my partner in crime (from time to time) a warrior, also with a necromancer secondary profession.

Anyhow. We meandered our way through the catacombs, had a few close calls. Oh, how do you revive if your group member forgot to swap in their revive spell? The only method I could find was to open the map and port back to town. That does not really sound right to me. Eventually, we came to a ritual room, and there in the center, was Pitney’s rare bird.

Smushed. A little pile of legs and feathers on the floor. That’s what the screen shot is showing though I’m standing in front of what’s left of him (or it). Great. So now after all that hard work I had to go back to Pitney and tell him that his rare bird (after already dealing with worms) was dead, used in some sort of necromantic scheme.

That’s right, it was me, I was feeling hungry after all that adventuring..

I think I’m sitting at level four now. Maybe part way through it. I did a few other quests, including lugging a huge honeycomb over a bridge for someone. I had to make sure I moved slowly, so that the bees could keep up. Good thing my skin is almost like plastic (oh that reminds me, I turned off the ambiance setting or whatever it was that caused my skin to glow as though I had just eaten a candle.. much better now).

Still having lots of fun with the game, for once not worried at all about the level grind - and just listening to everyone’s stories. It’s great!

I have been following Tipa’s adventures through guild wars for the past little while. They sounded interesting. All of the comments made it sound double interesting (wait, does that even make sense? Sure, lets just say it does). Not one to be left behind, I decided, hey, why not. A game with no monthly subscription fee that sounds like I’d enjoy it. Even if there are a bunch of expansions (addons?) that I don’t have. Taking a trip to EBGames almost made me cry. The first store, had all of their PC games all smushed on this little rickety rack, mashed boxes that looked like they were on their last legs. No guild wars there amongst the causalities. I headed to the mall, with a better EBGames. There’s not exactly a lot of places around here to buy games any more. I suppose I could have checked out wal-mart, but the prices are typically poor there.

So I headed to the next EBGames and there on the shelf was a copy of guild wars, platinum edition. Did I research things first before purchasing? Nope. I’m sure I could have searched online for the exact game Tipa (and others) are playing, but decided why not, $40 later (it apparently comes with an expansion called Eye of the North?) I decided I needed a new hard drive too.

Now, I’ve had an 80 gig hard drive for….. ever. I’ve never had anything bigger before. Now I’m sitting with a 320 gig hard drive wondering what the heck I am going to do with all that room. . . . No doubt I can think of something. I moved EQ2/EQ1/VG/WoW/Guild wars all over to the new drive, freeing up 50 gigs in the old drive which will just house all of my art work and photoshop and what not. The new one can have the games.

Anyhow, where was I. Ah, yes. Installed guild wars, created an account. Went through the character customization and had a lot of fun with that. I start with just the six basic classes, warrior, ranger, mesmer, monk, elementalist, and necromancer. Decided my first character would be an elementalist, and I just wandered around getting my footing, rebinding key commands so that 8624 on the numberpad moved me around (that’s right, I don’t use those ‘other’ keys, or mouse move), tried to figure out how to get rid of the UI for screen shots (failed at that) and a few other odds and ends.

I managed to grab some quests - I think I may have even hit level 2 and chose a second profession of ranger… at least, I think it was a ranger. By that time I was feeling slightly overwhelmed and some how I managed to skip every quest in the beginner tutorial area and instantly zone into two years after the fact…

Woopsie

So I deleted Stargrace Reveur 1.0 and created Minxes Reveur 1.0, a ranger mesmer. Picked up quests, picked up more quests.. something about rebels and over throwing a king and questioning some of his loyal members. I think. By that time I had a headache in full throttle and it was time to log off for now.

Gotta say, it’s a whole lot of fun so far. I grouped up for a good portion of things, did a mission before it booted me out into the 2 years after portion at level two. Decided I don’t like brown bears and they don’t like me. I slaughtered a whole field of them looking for a little scrap of fur to take to someone who gave me an axe in return.

I haven’t figured out if there’s skills to work up yet, I don’t know a lick about specs, where to put points (I gained I think five when I leveled or something?) but I’m still having fun. I love the fact that playing is free, it’s basically an online RPG that I can casually play when I’m not feeling like much else. We’ll see where it goes from here.