Went to the museum today, took lots of pictures. Took lots more crappy pictures which I’m not about to post. That’s the joys of photography, you take hundreds of pictures looking for the right “one” that captures exactly what it is you’re trying to show. Anyhow, the museum was amazing. They’ve added things since I last went. A lot of things. Of course, it’s been 8 years since I’ve been. My graduation (prom) was at this museum way back in 1999. One of their most popular features now, is a replica of some smaller towns across Canada as they progress to ‘city’ status. The image above is an apothecary of sorts. More pictures I took at the museum can be found here.

For a Monday, it was packed. There were a few schools doing the tour bit, as well as some older groups. Someone else’ prom was being set up there also in the huge open space just before the aboriginal display which is why I brought it up to begin with. Still had a great time though, and wandering through history is just one of those things I adore doing.

There was a special Greece display there, and a warriors helm in a glass case. The concept that one day a warrior actually wore that helm for battle or what ever, and now we stare at it in awe, is just mind boggling to me. Who knows what may end up in museums of the future.

I’d never been to one of these medieval festivals before. I know quite a few people who have. I’ve never seen one around the Ottawa area before though. It was pure luck that I even heard about this one. It took place at Upper Canada Village, which is a historic park that depicts life in the 1800’s with walking tours through old houses and schools. It was their first time putting on the festival, and I hope they considered it a success, because I certainly did.

I got there far too early, was my only issue. Shows repeated themselves throughout the day and by the time 5pm rolled around with the banquette not even beginning until 7, I’d seen some shows three times and was tired of sitting on the grass. I wasn’t feeling the greatest at all, so I headed home early, missing that portion of the event. It was still fantastic though.

People came in costume, which I will next year. There was jousting and “Knight Richard” actually got hurt quite badly, being tossed from his horse twice, and stepped on once. Scary stuff.

There were magic trick shows, sword fighting, buskers walking along the fair grounds (there was even one family carting a bin of GIANT pickles around, that they’d sell to you on sticks. They were by far the best food at the event and big sellers). There were belly dancers (who also gave lessons, and contrary to popular belief, belly dancers have BIG bellies, not slim tiny little things. She was very beautiful).

There was also a bird of prey show, with Canadian birds mostly. Red Tailed Hawks, and Great Horned Owls. They took to the skies and flew around the crowd as the falconer explained about each bird. Great show. The royals were also there, King, Queen, and their entourage. They watched the jousting from thrones situated a little ways from the event.

For some reason even Jack Sparrow was there - and let me tell you this gentleman did not only LOOK like the Captain, he sounded like him, almost exactly. He swaggered around the park telling kids they should take extra peanuts from the bowl he carried with him. Very exciting stuff.

I took over 100 pictures while I was there, and it was just simply an amazing time. You can find 40 more of the pictures if you’re interested, here.

Hopefully it runs again next year. They’ll have learned some stuff about what people want to see, what sold well, the grounds themselves and staging could have been set up slightly better. It was difficult to catch all of the acts because unless you memorized the schedule, you had no idea what was going on or where that particular show was going on. The weather stayed relatively nice, and I now closely resemble a lobster - at least in colour. Even though I brought sun screen with me apparently it was not quite strong enough. My face and shoulder where I walked with the camera bag are a brilliant shade of red. Ah well the price we pay for a day of entertainment!

“Katta Castrum was built to house the sickened leader of the Combine Loyalists, Tsaph Katta. It was once above water and connected to several areas housing Norrath’s endangered races, the Shissar, Sphinx, and Kedge. Experiments on the Kedge triggered the wrath of the Ocean Lord, Prexus, who sunk the city into the ocean. While it sunk, the magic of a great artifact was used to protect the city and bring air to it.

Homes were built for the endangered races, but over the years those races began to see the Loyalists as jailors. This is especially true for the Shissar, who broke through to Katta Castrum and began to destroy it. The Loyalists have defended the central part of the city, but fear they may lose it all soon. Not only the Shissar threaten them, but the artifact in their city has begun to weaken, allowing water to seep through their barrier of protection…” - Allakhazam

Yesterday it was time for a good ‘ol EQ1 experience grind. Which meant looking for a group, buffing up, and sitting at a camp for hours on end. Katta Castrum (which I had never been to) was the destination, and the Green House was the camp. In the hours I was there (boxing Ellithia and Kameeko) Ellithia hit level 70 (finally!) and 7aa, and Kameeko hit 69, and also managed to get herself a few aa. We weren’t here for loot (thank goodness, because I think all that dropped was one piece of chain defiant) but the experience was steady, and we managed to do a few quests involving faction (which can later be used to get gear, or so I’m told).

It was nice to go to a zone I’d never even heard of before. Out of all the screen shots available I probably picked the poorest one to actually take, but my mind was elsewhere.

Where exactly? Ah, on the Medieval Festival tomorrow of course! I’m feeling slightly under the weather, and so have decided tonight to do the right thing, go to bed early, relax, make sure I’m all packed up and ready. Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain (60% chance) but I’m hoping for some reason the clouds decide to avoid the festival. I’m most eager about the birds of prey show, and the King’s Banquette with the entertainment to follow. I should get there around 1pm or so, and be staying until midnight. It’s an hour drive there and back - but so worth it!

The only way it could be any more fun is if I were going with a bunch of my friends (who would undoubtedly get into so much trouble it would make me simply shake my head at them). Someone mentioned that I should organize a trip to Disney World for Nostalgians which actually didn’t sound like THAT bad of an idea. It comes in handy that my Mother is a travel agent. Something to ponder in the future. Perhaps not Disney World since I’m not exactly keen on that place, but some where else that’s not TOO extravagant a price.

More rambling once I get back from the festival, though it probably won’t be until Sunday.

I’d love to say I’ve finally settled down with one character, or even two character. Those who know me, know better though. I’ve constantly got alts on the go. I think the only game where I didn’t have a plethora of alts, was Vanguard where I limited myself to three, and EQ1, where I also only had three (a rogue, enchanter, and cleric. Sitting at level 72 last I checked). So it really came as no surprise last night when I brought up making alts to Zokor and Gozad.

Safe Haven’s “official” branch is on the Uther server, which is a PvE server. They have both an alliance guild and a horde guild. So we decided to make alliance characters there, since we already had horde on our PvP server of Ravenholdt. I wanted to be able to give Zokor a break from tanking some times, as I’m sure he can tired of it. Anyone can tired of anything if they play it enough I’m sure. I only know one person who has never had an alt in all the time he’s gamed and that would be my other half who plays a Shadowknight in EQ2, and has since release. A monk in EQ1 before that. A paladin in WoW when he dips in for maybe an hour or two a year. In any case, Zokor jumped at the chance, and thus our Uther characters were formed. A warrior (me), mage (Zokor), and hunter (Gozad). We didn’t play much, managed to get to level 6 before calling it a night. The lands were pretty though, and it was a nice change from playing horde. I miss having bags of a proper size, that’s for sure, and by ‘proper’ I mean.. well, even 8 slot bags would do. I’m pretty sure in every game I’ve ever played, the bag size is never quite enough. Especially not for beginner players. Not for pack rats either. I have items I don’t even know what to do with any more. That’s a whole other story though…

The whole ‘less game more life’ has been going great so far. It’s been very odd going from 17+ hours of gaming to 2-3. I’ve found myself with a whole lot of free time, but with great friends am managing to find plenty to do between writing, reading, artwork, going out. I’m glad I stuck with a ‘casual’ game, and I live vicariously through the Shadowknight on EQ2 as he does his Veeshan’s Peek raids (among others) nightly. With my birthday just around the corner I was going to ask for a new hard drive and video card, but I’m finding myself without a real reason to get them (quite yet, until WAR comes out). My trusty 7600 will do until then. My mom just upgraded her machine, and has been eagerly telling me about how well it runs now *chuckles* gotta love family.

This weekend, between that real life stuff we all have, Unsafe Haven (the Ravenholdt branch) headed to a few instances, and wow did we have fun. Zokor had a paladin quest at level 20 that sent him to a few instances (Ragefire Chasm, Shadowfang Keep, and outside of that instance in Ashenvale that I can’t quite remember the name of right now) and we pinged those off easily enough. We only went far enough to get his update, and then moved on to the next area. By the end of it he had a shiny new polearm. I decided to get rid of my level 20 warlock, since I really wasn’t enjoying her, and started up a troll warrior. Why warrior? Well some times it’s nice to have a break from the general ‘mains’ that we’re all playing, and no doubt the tank would like to do something other then tanking some times. I wanted a little character to do that with.

Surprisingly enough Mayadhros from Vanguard came to say hello in World of Warcraft! It was a pleasant surprise when he joined the guild as his 25 rogue Skeletorn (yes, before you even ask, he is Forsaken). Since Gozad, Zokor, Skeletorn, and myself were all around last night we decided to do a full run of Shadowfang keep, which went off pretty well (aside from one mishap where Gozad’s pet decided to run ramped and train everyone — everyone except me) and everyone walked away with some experience, quest updates, and new gear. We had a lot of blues drop which was nice to see, and everyone got a level or two (even with reduced experience as I was there with my level 33). As people gain more levels that gap between experience will lesson, and I’m looking forward to it. If there’s anyone else out there who wants to join the (very small) group, please feel free! It’s never too late.

I decided to drop enchanting too, I know it’s a wonderful craft and very handy, but I just didn’t want to spend so much of my time disenchanting items in order to get mats. I figured I’d switch over to engineering. Is that a mistake? Should I just tough it out with enchanting? Tailoring is my other craft, though I’m only slightly into silk right now. World of Warcraft crafting is.. well, it’s all auto combines that never fail so long as you have the materials (at least, so far for me it is. Maybe this changes later on, I’m not quite sure). I don’t mind it though, it adds to the whole ‘casual’ thing that I have going on.

I’m sitting at 120gold or so now, and contemplating donating 100 of that towards the first tab of the guild bank. We don’t exactly NEED a guild bank, but it would be nice. Not sure, I’ll have to keep pondering it.

P.S. For more information about my plight with the pigeons, be sure to jump on over to this post here… it’s been interesting to say the least.

A few changes happened over the last little while, some drastic (I suppose) and some not so drastic. First and foremost, I’ve switched games, again. I took a good long look at life (or lack there of) and decided to cut down my play time by a significant amount. Just because I have a house-wife life style doesn’t mean I should be dedicating a larger then normal portion of it to gaming, which was what I was quickly doing. While I am proud that my husband is able to support both of us while I take care of the home (no children to devote my time to remember) there’s still got to be ‘more’ to life. Not that ALL my time was spent gaming, but a good potion. Hopefully my readers are not too judgmental on me in that regard. Anyhow. So less play time (to me) meant that I wanted a game that took significantly less effort. I didn’t want something I could be drawn into for hours on end. Something less complex. Of course what else did that leave me with besides World of Warcraft (hah, I don’t mean for that to sound insulting, I’m aware that’s how it comes out though).

So yes, I’ve taken up residence in Azeroth (for now) as three characters on the Ravenholdt server. I have a 33 priest, 23 hunter, and 16 warlock. A few friends have decided to come play as well, for which I am eternally grateful. Growlius (who I played EQ2 as well as VG with), Zevad (from VG) and Gozad (also from VG) to name a few. If anyone else is interested in coming to play and maybe doing a few instances and what not, PLEASE feel free. I never intended on losing touch with people just because I’ve switched games (again). I’m on the horde side, and the server is a pvp / rp server. Alliance outnumbers (apparently) 3:1, but I’ve played here before and thus far am enjoying myself. I’ve got a far more limited play schedule then I was on before, which I am actually enjoying. You can typically find me in game on weekends (off and on) as well as from 7pm-10pm EST (or so) give or take a few hours here and there.

I admit, I’m one of those people waiting for the release of WAR (though honestly, I know nothing about it) just to see a new game. I’ve been slightly tired with what’s out there- I’ve been playing them for so long how could I not be.

Aside from the game stuff, I’ve started up a new blog, here. If you’re interested in reading more about me as a person and not so much me as a gamer, feel free. I’m not doing this for any particular reason other then my own personal venting mechanism. It’s therapeutic (so I’ve heard) to ramble on about boring things that no one except your family would be interested in. I’m keeping it seperate from this gaming blog because (though I know there are feeds) I’d rather not put people to sleep immediately (a good 10 seconds after reading is fine though). Some of my artwork and photography will also (hopefully) be displayed on there for people to check out. Maybe even some writing if I get brave enough, who knows.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, where ever they gamed.

One of the (numerous) skyscrapers that you can find in downtown Toronto. I wasn’t allowed to take my camera to the actual concert (though I saw that it didn’t stop lots of other people from bringing theirs) but I did snag some nice shots of the city. Toronto is the sort of place I don’t mind visiting for a day or two, but when I get home, I’m thankful I live on the outskirts of Ottawa. Nothing beats home. The concert itself was amazing, even if the opening band played for a good 45 minutes before James Blunt finally came on stage, it was well worth the wait.

The concert took place at the Sony Center, which holds 3,500 people. Not nearly as large as the other concert places around Toronto- also completely fine by me though. The Spice Girls were there tonight doing a show and there’s no way I wanted to be swamped by that many people screaming and shouting. The crowd was mostly older twenties and thirties, some screaming fans but nothing too hectic. There’s something to be said for watching an artist you enjoy live, rather then just listening to their music on the radio or an mp3. The atmosphere is completely different and the over all feeling of the songs can (if done well) be completely moving.

The weekend itself was wonderful, did a lot of walking and I’m now sporting numerous blisters on my feet as proof. That’ll teach me to wear my fancy dress boots as opposed to comfortable shoes. Ah well, worth every bit of pain if I do say so myself. I’ll make a note to pack an extra pair, next time. I typically head down to Toronto a few times a year for various things, mostly visiting friends or heading to Canada’s Wonderland (2 years ago) or Niagara Falls (last year). Montreal is closer, but it’s not very fun to drive around, their streets (aside from being all in French) are interesting to navigate.

I did play a little Vanguard once I’d gotten home and relaxed some, dinged Satia 24 mineralogist, which is always nice. One step closer to making those housing bricks. Tonight I’ll probably work on the Hunter’s League chain of quests I’d been working on, we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully Satia gets a robe that doesn’t look as bad as the one she’s wearing right now (though all of the robes tend to have a ‘brown paper bag’ graphic to them. Heard from Borgio in game which is always nice, looks like he’s spending a little time in Telon, I’ll have to say hello when I see him on. Tomorrow, another 15cm of snow is expected. Two more months of winter (give or take a week) and then finally it’ll be spring. I’m looking forward for the snow disappearing.

Walking through Tanvu (again, notice how it’s night time AND raining here?) on my way to check the mail and see if any of my pretties had sold, I came across a player made ship. I think this one is a caravel, which means it’s one of the larger ships. There’s sloops and caravels, one can travel into deep water, and one has to stick to the shores. You can also name your ships. When I was walking through Khal, I was amused by the names. The first one I happened to come across:

Big Tity Party Patrol

Yup. That was the name of their massive ship, I kid you not. Ships are made by carpenters, and they take a lot of work. Then agian, everything in Telon takes a lot of work. Before you get started on building an actual ship, you have to do painful quests to learn how to make each portion of the ship. This includes learning hull sections, rudder, planks in general, deck stations, spoke, helm, deck, mast pole, mast mount, getting rigging and sails, and learning mast assembly, then also doing a continental quest to learn one of the three styles of sloops. Oh joy hmms?

After all that comes the materials for a real boat. For a real sloop for example, you need:

• 176 Dry Timber
  5 Arid Timber
  24 Iron Ore:
  5 Box of Fasteners (3 iron ore each)(15 iron ore total)
  2 iron bindings (1 iron ore each)(2 iron ore total)
  1 Mast Mount (8 iron ore each)(8 iron ore total)
  4 Rotwort Ship Paste (can be bought from any shipwright)
  1 Ship Paint (many different choices, buy from any shipwright)
  34 Firegrass Bales:
  1 Small Thestran Sail(10 firegrass bales)(10 firegrass bales total)
  1 Small Mast Rigging(8 firegrass ropes, 3 firegrass per rope)(24 firegrass bales total)

That’s for the small boat. No wonder people take such pride in their crafted dinghies. For the caravel it’s not much better. You need to learn a general quest proving your worth to make these monsters, then learn the hull, the rudder, learn how to make a caia figurehead, deck stations, spoke, helm, deck, mast pole, getting a mast pole, rigging and sails, mast assembly, and then a quest over all to learn how to make a continental caravel. The supplies needed for that one?

• 307 Knotted Timber(307 Knotted Planks)
  5 Warped Timber(3 rare select spokes)(2 rare select planks)
  46 pyrite ore
  1 mast mount(12 pyrite ore per mast mount)
  4 Pyrite bindings (1 pyrite ore each)
  10 Pyrite Fasteners (3 pyrite ore each)
  6 Lotus Ship Paste
  51 silkbloom
  1 Medium Thestran Sail(15 silkbloom each)
  1 Medium Thestran Rigging(36 silkbloom each)(12 silkbloom ropes each)(3 silkbloom each rope)

When things only stack up to 20, and you need 307 of something, that’s a lot of space taken up with crafting stuff. Granted you do have a full sized bank on each continent, and I suppose that’s what alts are for in Vanguard, but still, that’s a lot of stuff to stash away some place. Kudos to those people out there who go down the ship building path, I have a small understanding of how much work must have went into the blasted thing.

Graphic wise the ships differ by make and model, colour and continent. I love that about Vanguard, everything is fairly unqiue to some certain degree. More so then EQII at least where everyone ends up looking like cardboard cut outs of one another. Apparently in time galleons will be added to the game, which people seem excited about.

As I gated home (since you can only purchase one house per account, each one of your alts will get the “call home” recall button) I noticed.. half my neighbours were missing and their plots are now for sale. My plot is located fairly close to the Vulmane starting town, one chunk away actually which is fairly covenant for me. I used to have neighbours with fairly well built houses on either side of me in my little section, and now their houses are gone and the plots are for sale. That’s what happens when your rent expires, your stuff will go to escrow for you to claim at a later date if you return, but in the mean time you can loose your plot if someone else decides to buy the land while you’ve not paid your rent. I stuck a couple of gold (rent is 25s a week) into the rent section of my house so that this (hopefully) won’t happen to me. Not that I’ve made any more progress on my home. I need to get my artificer to level 35 or so in order to start proper construction, and I haven’t checked out the prices on broker lately to see what the base materials cost any more *note to self, do that today*. Valentines day items are coming to Vanguard on Tuesday apparently, and I have to admit the house items look pretty interesting. I still love the way Vanguard’s housing is set up, so that you feel like you own an actual piece of the game, no zones at all, you just walk along adventuring and stumble across someone’s house (which is typically locked to random strangers, boo, how can I explore their decorating that way?!) not to mention the ability to put chests in your house and fill those chests with items that you don’t feel like dragging along with you. Anyhow, enough of my rambling, safe travels where ever you game, be it Norrath, Azeroth, Telon, or some other pixel world.

Today I’m off to Winterlude, depending on the snow in town, a winter festival that’s a lot of fun with a lot of ice sculptures. Hopefully I’ll get some nice pictures!

First of all, the tickets for the James Blunt concert came today by Fed-Ex, I’ve mentioned once or twice I’m excited. Ok, maybe a few more times then that. Again, never been to a concert so it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while now. I’m 26 after all, my 17 year old baby brother has been to more concerts then I have. My only concern is the weather, I’m hoping the drive down will be nice. As I look out the window today and see another 10cm of snow I’m cursing slightly under my breath. Hey, it is Canada though, we’ll still be seeing snow in early May.

I decided to make a psionicist late last night, logged out before doing anything (other then getting her guilded) though, and picked up with it today instead. Now she’s level 10. Not bad. A huge thank you to Lanatra from guild who supplied me with a few silkbloom bags- wow those things are HUGE compared to what I’ve been using (28 slot vs. 14 slot) I enjoy the little community of the guild. Every night there are 5-15 people on, day times are a little slower, I believe the majority of the every-day-gamers are pacific as far as time zones go, so maybe I miss some. During the day there are typically 3-4 on doing their own things or relaxing after working nightshift. That doesn’t sound like fun at all.

The class is a lot of fun, I made it for a duo team with a Dreadknight, I was using the bard, but honestly bards can solo just fine on their own, so I wanted something that was a little harder to solo with, that I would benefit from a duo with. Does that make sense? I think it does. Anyhow.

I have one ’stun’ that works as a mez so far, I also have invis (which has a nasty habbit of breaking just as you walk past that four dot creature every time) and some nukes. I have two buffs, one is a bond I form with other psi that enhance my power regen, and the other is a wis / int buff for my group. I also have a stance, which I had to physically go get by clicking on some gestalt scattered throughout the world of Telon. I found this post which at least tells me what level I get a new one at, and where to find them per continent. Very handy information. This is another priceless site for Vanguard stuff, crafting related, and for all those diplomacy people out there, make sure you bookmark this. This site explains how to use the G15 keyboard to program crafting macros (so your wrists don’t fall off) and while I haven’t figured it out yet, I intend to. One of the best places to find information on diplomacy is here, and if you’re looking for fantastic maps, look no further then here. Everything you wanted to know about building your own house, can be found here. Figured I’d share a few of my favorite links, ones I use quite frequently while I play. I know Vanguard is certainly not for everyone, and there’s still plenty of bugs, but for some strange reason it’s stuck with me despite those. Probably because I remember how it was at release, and I had such high hopes for it.

The screen shot above is blurred because it’s raining out, which is an annoying weather factor that is slowly growing on me. It seems like it’s either always night time, or always raining, or raining and night time, and when Christmas was around it was always snowing. Inside buildings, that’s how powerful snow on Telon is (to be fair, the whole raining in buildings thing has now been fixed). Psi get to cast clones of the mobs they are fighting, they do no real damage but they inure a lot of hate, so you can snare and nuke a few shots before the mob (depending on it’s difficulty vs. you) will see through the illusion and slowly shamble over your way (as long as you’ve snared. Remember, you’re squishy, you’re going to die if you’re fighting something hard and it sees through that illusion and comes bolting after you). I’m thinking carpenter as far as tradeskill classes go, I haven’t quite decided though. My mino hit level 17 and I’d like to keep leveling that so I can at least get more pieces done on my house. Outfitter (specifically tailor) would be nice so then I could make my own gear- but how many times have I wanted to be able to make my own furniture. I suppose it’d be best to actually finish the house first, then worry about making things to put inside. It’s a little difficult to hang things on the walls that I don’t have yet.

Oh, and as a side note before it gets mentioned. I know how hideously ugly  those character models are (that’s a high elf pictured above, not that you can tell at all by the man-ish arms and hair that’s cut through her back) I’m keeping my fingers crossed on those revamps.

Shadowgeist is pretty bad at keeping secrets from me (as much as I am from him I suppose, I’ve never been good at that sort of thing) so when he started hinting in on a Valentines day present I knew it was only a matter of time. NOT that I’m complaining! Turns out that at the end of this month I’m headed to Toronto for a few days to catch a James Blunt concert.

I love his music, and I’ve never been to a concert before aside from 2000 Summersault where I saw The Smashing Pumpkins play their last touring appearance before they reunited in 2007, Our Lady Peace, Foo Fighters, A Perfect Circle, Eve 6, The Catherine Wheel, Treble Charger, Sum 41, and Finger Eleven. Most of that concert was spent trying to avoid the sun though and getting a horrible burn all along the back of my neck, and my taste in music has changed drastically since.

Anyhow, I’m excited. Exceptionally excited at that. I’m sure it’ll be a lot of fun. I’m not sure if I’m going for two nights and three days yet, or just one night and two days. Toronto is not that far away (about 6-7 hours) and hopefully the weather will be nice. The only down side of course is the drive, lots and lots of traffic through that city, but I believe the hotel will be smack dab down town, so we won’t have to worry about having to drive everywhere, and can just leave the car parked. Toronto is one of those cities I love to visit, but would hate to live due to all of the people. I’m more of a country type person, heh.

Today in EQII is the five (at least) hour patch that brings epics to people. No doubt everyone is mighty excited over that, and I can’t blame them. I haven’t decided if I’m even going to bother working on mine, EQII has sort of been on the back burner for me (again) as I flounder about. We’ll see how it goes. In Vanguard I managed to get my baby bard to level 13 (have I mentioned just how much fun they are? They are SO fun!) and did a little crafting, not too much though. At least it gives me something to do while EQII is down for their massive patch.