As if crafting in Vanguard were not difficult enough, there’s no way to sort your recipe book. They don’t even follow any real order, aside from when you’ve picked up the recipe from the vendor maybe. You can’t sort by tiers, or continental styles. Each continent has their own recipes. They have different effects, and looks, and in some cases, stats. So I looked for a UI mod that would help me sort my recipes to some degree. Low and behold, I found MaddyCraft. It doesn’t craft for you, that’d just be wrong, but if you’re willing to take the time to do it right, it WILL make your life simpler. What Maddycraft does most notably, is allow you to create macros under each style category, that will target a specific recipe. The macro in vanguard to select a specific recipe is /refinesetrecipe “name of recipe here” so the resources were already in game. In fact I’d been using that command in a macro to select my housing bricks (since I need to make so many of them) for a while now. Along the bottom of each continental category, is a number button. Those represent each tier (up to 5) and you can create macros for each page. So the three pages I have up there, are Kojani style tier 1, then Qalian style tier five, and Thestran style tier two. Click the recipe name (such as focus) and it will pick the slate focus recipe out of the huge list I have in my book. Without me having to scroll through that mess. I have over 150 recipes, finding what I need, especially by continental style, is a huge pain in the arse. Hopefully, SoE will fix this craft book issue before too long. In the mean time, I’m thankful people take the time to create these sorts of mods. Doing the data entry for each macro was a bit of a pain, but I’m thankful I did it none the less. The only other issue is that I’ll be inputting the data for each crafter, as they’re all different. A huge thank you to Photons from guild who suggested I try Maddy, and also sent me the updated version of DroxUI, which is the basic mod I use.

The one bad part of these mods, is that they are of course made by real people with real lives. Wait, how can that be bad? Well, a lot of them give up the games for whatever reasons, and the mods are no longer updated as releases come out. So my advice is don’t get *too* attached to any mod, unless you’re the sort who can code yourself and you’re confident that you can fix whatever’s gone wrong (like riftways, this previous patch).

Last night Growlius, Kalaso, and I did some Wardship quests, netting ourselves a nice earring (heroic) reward. The quest was easily soloable, but we decided to group up anyhow. It had 10 parts, fairly simple, a little running around, some killing. I was so distracted by other things going on that I didn’t even have a chance to actually read the quest and find out what we were doing. I know at one portion we had to pray at some alters for a few minutes, so I guess it was something religious. We had a new recruit join the guild last night, who was also completely new to the game so it was basically my responsibility to not only see that they were made comfortable in guild (how can you NOT be comfortable when our guild members /bite all those who join?) but that they were getting along well enough in game on their lowbie characters. They’d come from various other mmo’s (most new recruits do) and I always try to make it a personal goal to ensure that people are at least having their questions answered. I’m about half way through 33 now adventure wise, and level 45 for crafting. I made something this morning and apparently discovered it (disco’s do get re-set with GU’s though) which I found amusing, just a ring for Growlius.

Last night Eleyn poked me in Vanguard from EQII, which was a huge surprise (and a pleasant one at that) and mentioned that maybe he’d poke into VG some time to say hello. Krai (also from EQII) mentioned they’d also activated their VG account, and may use it to ‘escape raids’ some nights. Hey, whatever brings people to the game, I’m for it. Mayadhros wanted to do a little adventuring on alts, but alas I was swept up already with my group, that’s the one problem I suppose. Managed to get Lunestra tagged in the guild as well, and tomorrow there’s a guild meeting. Thus far, things are going smoothly, even though I do feel (at times) a little over burdened and that things are quite hectic. I suppose that’s one good thing about playing during the days, there are less people around and generally it’s quieter, I enjoy my time.

I’m one step closer to being able to complete my house. Yesterday I hit level 31 crafter, which was a huge deal to me. It meant that I could go about learning new recipes once I’d completed the continental quests (the thestran one sent me to Konarthi Point, which is a quaint fishing village on the far east side of the continent, to study a ship there and uh.. make clubs from wood) it also meant I could learn beams, panels, and bricks (and shingles if I get the 2,000 faction required for kojan) for housing. The only down side to this is that at this level I can only make those one at a time. I need 200 limestone bricks, 60 panels, and 30 beams. In a few more levels I’ll be able to make these 5 at a time- or if I’m really lucky I can buy / farm a manual that will let me craft these 10 at a time. Now that would be a blessing. I’ve got about half of the supplies I’ll need, but my harvesting is too low to obtain them myself. A guild mate has been generous enough to donate spare supplies, and the rest I’ll buy from broker (about 2g a stack, and a stack in VG is 20) which is still cheaper then the 18g a stack the finished product is going for right now.

Most people (I’ve learned) don’t bother with a T4 house (which is what I’m creating) but I’m not sure how long it will take me to get to T5, and I’d really like a house now. Impatient? Yes, slightly.

Yesterday was also a good day for crafting in the fact that I found two silver masterwork sigils. I need 8 (well, now 6) to buy one single recipe for my tier. There are four or five upgrade recipes each level to purchase. It’s going to take me quite a long time in order to get any of them, unless I happen to be lucky enough that I find a gold sigil, which allows you to buy any one recipe, you don’t need 8. Most people save those for T5 though. When you’re one tier above the recipe, it costs 6 sigils, two tiers above, it costs 4. I’d really love my jewelry upgrade as well as my weapons of course. Luckily enough the stone focus upgrade is tradeable, and cheap on the broker.

As far as adventuring goes, I’m completely lost. I’d like to find some (a lot) of quests that I can solo or duo with my adventure team, but Vanguard does a very poor job of leading you around. I did a few quests for TK, but the rest require a group (and it’s so crowded there it makes everything four times as long and difficult to complete) so if anyone has some suggestions on where to go to quest through the rest of the 20’s (I managed to hit 27 last night, Growlius landed himself 26) I’d love some help in figuring it out.

GU4 is do out on March the 4th. I’ve got mixed feelings about this one. The helmets are a good thing, loosing face choices is bad (I spent an hour choosing how my characters would look, to reduce that no matter what the new options would be would bother me I’m fairly certain) the node changes I’m happy about, dust changes also happy about. The new flying mounts will give people something to do- happy about that as well. Uping the sigil drop rate slightly I’m indifferent about, not sure it’ll make that much of an effect depending on how often they’ll drop compared to now. In any case, it should be interesting to see what happens as a result of this update, it’s a big one.

Yesterday Growlius and I finally finished our Hunter’s League quests. The breast piece that I’m sporting in the screen shot. Yes, I realize that my gloves (as well as my boots) are bright green, and are not exceptionally flattering to this blood mage. I suppose it happens. I’ll change them eventually, maybe. The quest took forever, there were too many groups after the same mobs we needed. I’m glad it’s done, but it leaves me with no idea where to quest next. There are the shadowhound and unicorn mount quests that should be looked at eventually, as well as continuing CIS, but all of that requires a group.

I also hit 26 on Satia, which was great. I managed to do a lot of crafting and hit almost 28 mineralogist. Today, I’ve been busy learning brick styles, cornerstones, and shingles for those Kojan houses that don’t use thatch roofs. In a few more levels I’ll be able to learn all that for the next tier of homes (which is the one my house is). I also had to learn beams, and panels per continent. Each house is different, thus each house component is also different. It’s nice to be able to make items that will be useful to me though. A guild mate has already volunteered to make some furniture for me as well.

Faalcon made me a wonderful piece of star iron gear which was nice, and also upgraded a few pieces of my crafting gear. Have I mentioned yet today how wonderful my guild mates are? He also made me a full set of harvesting tools (and some gear) which I’m thankful for. I sent along some coin in return, I don’t have a whole lot, but I try to help where I can.

I also made my first flawless (orange, or also called heroic) piece of gear yesterday, a focus. I need another level before I can wear it, for now it’s for sale (though stone focus’ are not exactly rare, so I don’t know that it will sell). I can make a lot of different hammers as well, which is fun. One handed and two handed. Being a mino is enjoyable. In fact, every craft class is.

Still no word yet on when the next GU is, apparently it was pushed back to early March. If it gets more things changed and fixed then I’m all for it. We’ll just have to see how it goes.

Mounts are an important part of Telon, the world is vast and it can take you 10 minutes just to get across two chunks (continents are made up of like, 10 chunks by 10 chunks, so that’s a lot of traveling). Along with that of course is the appearance of your mount. You can get a horse at level 10, through crafting, diplomacy, or adventuring. Vanguard is great that way, any one of the three spheres will work for a number of things that are level based. There’s a selection of mounts of all different colours based on what you’d like. I wish they’d impliment a ‘dressing room’ option, but for now you’ve basically got to guess, or look it up online some place.

Ishbel is riding a docile grey mount that she bought in Tawar Galan, an outpost with lots of sailors wandering around, on the Kojan continent. I managed to grind my way to level 21 early this morning which opened up the apprentice (T3) quests, per continent of course. Made my way to Ahgram and spoke with Master Outfitter Alibaan Deleard who of course sent me away to Khal (which is where I started to begin with). The Master Outfitter there gave me a recipe to make some stiff leather bundles and I set off to finish that up. Along the way I stumbled across a good many level 18-20 crafter quests, so before I started in on the apprentice ones I finished those up and ended up getting a nice new heroic crafter ring that summons resources every 24 hours of real life game play. Interesting.

Before long I was 80% through my level and hadn’t even touched those apprentice quests, I was a notch or two away once I finished that up and scribed my new recipes. Barding was on the list. It was one of those “oh my goodness I really want to make THAT” items that I’d seen. It also required grade A on completion so I was worried about being able to make it. Thankfully I had crafter buffs on, and I also have a clicky hat piece that I used while crafting. You can add dye to the combine, and voila, a bit of red, gave me the barding pictured above in the screen shot. Barding is not just for show, either. It gives me +15 mount stability which means it’s harder for beasts to knock me off while I’m running through angry creatures. At this tier I can only add yellow, red, black, or orange dye to my clothes. There’s a bunch of other colours that I suppose come later, like blue, light blue, and purple. The item was enough to ding me 22 as well.

As a leatherworker, I can also make saddle bags, which is great, another container to store random pieces of junk I happen to stumble across. I’m getting in as much gaming as I can now, before I head to Toronto for three days, I’m still very excited about the trip, hopefully Growlius doesn’t pass me by too many levels while I’m gone. He hit level 22 last night and I’m still 40% away, it means new skills though and I’m looking forward to that.

Taking a trip into Vanguard proved to be (aside from a lot of fun) profitable, as I managed to claim this new reward from my claim window. You get the choice of 3 bags, one per account (they’re a little stingy with their gifts). One for each of the spheres. Since I can get player made bags easily enough, and I can quest for a diplomacy bag, I opted to get this crafters pouch, to help boost up my stats and give me a permanent buff. I claimed it on the artificer, and I think it was a great choice.

I managed to finish off the URT weapon quest with some help from a GM who kindly dropped all those essences (the quest is broken) into my inventory, and decided to move on to the Hunter’s League quests in Qalia. The first two that rewarded yellow gear (around level 19 I believe?) I completed with little difficulty, having to smush some level 18 cyclops and a few other bad guys that roamed the coast. The next quest I’m on wants some zombie flesh though and they’re four dot which means they’re heroic and I should be in a group to kill them. They’re also level 22, so I didn’t want to risk getting smacked around too badly before giving up until I can find a group.

The guild had some low 20’s groups going on in Qalia as well on Friday night, Sunday was of course the super bowl where everyone was busy shouting at the TV and watching the fantastic commercials (which are blocked out here in Canada, we get to watch the Canadian commercials instead, and none of them are nearly as exciting as the prized American superbowl commercials) of course regionsay was filled with people arguing about why their team should win and bringing up every possible bad play that was ever made by anyone. Interesting, to say the least.

I also started a shaman class, a vulmane at that (they need tails, badly) and with some company got her to level 8. I’ve never played a shaman before (or any other healer aside from bloodmage for that matter), so far it’s a lot of fun. Helps to have someone to play with of course. Formed a brotherhood with both the shaman and my bloodmage, so my characters can’t out level anyone. I like the idea of sharing exp even if it takes a little longer to level up in the end.

Screen shot above is my FIRST ever rare piece of Jewelry that I crafted - all by myself! Now, I realize it’s not grade A quality - I’m a level or two shy of being able to get pure goodness on those, but none the less I was impressed and happy that I’d figured out how to do it at all. It starts with a base jewelry piece that’s made out of a simple garnet, then I add a tin sheet (care of Arysh, my weaponsmith. Thank goodness, because there were none on the broker, VG is not crafter friendly it would appear) and I added a uh, rare T2 resource. Carnelian I want to say. Combined it all together, and ta da, that’s what I got.

Now Arysh isn’t quite up to snuff making her tin sheets, so they were B quality, and Satia is missing a lot of points in shaping and reforming for some reason (which I haven’t quite gotten the knack of fixing yet) but hey, I did hit level 14, and I spent most of the day working on WO’s and crafting quests. I got a lot of gear upgrades, learned a few things. I know Tush pretty well now, lots of crafting quests there. Some bigger crafters were talking about uh.. unions or something? I think I’m too small for that (thankfully). Crafting is a world in VG all on its own. If you only have one crafter in fact you may find it difficult. For example, while I can make regular jewelry all on my own - to make upgraded I need tin sheets - which I can’t make. I think most crafts work that way, to make the upgraded versions you need a piece from another craft class. Works for me.

Morras Goldfarn who I was working quests for, happened to stop me as I was walking, and ever so bluntly replied, “Is that a pumpkin pie in your pants?!” ….Seriously, I’m not sure if I was squishing while I walked, or there was some sort of .. scent.. issue, but this boy got a thump on the head for even contemplating it. Though I suppose there are worse things to be compared to then pumpkin pie. I didn’t do any adventuring today at all, and I probably won’t for a little while as I get situated with the crafting. I’d like to get all three of my crafters up to T3, which would match my adventure level. I doubt very highly I’ll have the patience for that though. Minxes (the future leatherworker) is still sitting at level 1 after all. I’d also like to learn the other styles of crafting, as Qualia is int / wis and Satia could benefit from that (right now I’ve got her stocked in vit).

Game crashed twice today randomly to desktop, a small annoyance. The regionsay channels are much the same in pretty much any mmo, 90% of the conversations revolve around WoW and the ‘next big mmo’ that everyone is waiting for, spammers, and lately, politics in the states. Needless to say it doesn’t take long before I just turn them (the channels) off and sigh in relief.

If any bloggers out there want some jewelry pieces made, feel free to send mats my way (materials) I can’t guarantee pristine yet on T2 (I can for T1 though) but I can pull off pristine on most things (so far), give me another level or two and I’ll find it much easier I’m sure. I found 12-14 very hard levels, hopefully the next few are easier. I’m still learning and there’s a lot to take in.

Vanguard is finally down for patching today, where they’re removing Randolph’s ability to fly (pouts) and I believe also reducing the bonus exp they had running during the holidays (double pouts). I’ve come to the conclusion that Vanguard is one of those games where you want to focus on one character at a time - if you plan on working all of the spheres. Other wise, you just end up standing at the same level on all three (or more) characters for far too long. So after some contemplating, I’ve decided to (mostly) stick it out with the blood mage. She’s getting re-geared (slowly) as I do gray quests in the mean time. Who wants to play a character that’s got no gear after all. I switched her crafting around from tailor (which would only be able to make bags and light armor - not useful to all of my characters) to artificing, so that I could make things for all of my characters. I also switched to lumberjack as a harvest and quarrying so I can get some gems.

I spent 30 minutes killing stone golem guys around the Three Rivers area yesterday in Thestra, and managed to harvest FOUR rare T2 gems, which was great. I already had one on me, so I can (eventually) make some pretties with them. I’m only level 12 at the moment, so I find everything difficult to make pristine.  I’ll just do those work orders and try to get a few more levels before I want to risk using my rares.  I’m also working on some crafting quests, or trying to at least. I need better gear, I don’t quite understand the whole.. where to put my points thing, and the other tab that lets you lock some skills and decrease / increase others is a bit muddled to me as well. I’ve read the crafting forums but I haven’t made much sense of it yet. I have decreased carpentry since that’s not the line I’ve chosen to go down, and I know that will move my points around for me. I know my ’shaping’ skill is hurting me right now, but the Kojan market has absolutely nothing for sale, so I’ll have to check out the other continents and see what I can find. I’ve been working on a crafting quest for Tush that gives me two tools and two pieces of orange gear, so I’m excited about that. I need to look up the quests again and see some other fairly simple crafting quests I can do to earn some gear and tools. I know you can get them with the work orders too, but mine have not been rewarding very many useful items like gear (even though I make sure to get B-A quality on them all, I do dark blues).

I did more of the URT (United Races of Thestra) quests yesterday, getting Satia her shoes and shoulders - the gear is level 18 and she’s level 23, but it’s far superior to what I was wearing. I have the pants quest still on me, and I believe I am missing a few. Or maybe they get unlocked as I work them, I’m not certain. I know there is also a level 18-20 set of gear in Qualia that I can quest for, called hunter’s gear I believe? I’ll have to look into that as well. It probably requires a group for most of it or something. Then there’s also these quests that I see people LFG for all the time, called “TK” which I’ve asked the guild about a little. Looks fun. So I’m going to stick it out with the healer (even though there’s a need for tanks as well) and see where I go with her. In the mean time, safe travels, hope everyone else is having a blast too.

Trying to take advantage of the 50% bonus in Vanguard before they take it away (I’m dreading that) so I decided to shuffle my crafting around a little bit. Satia was a level 13 tailor, making bags and light armor, but I decided to switch her completely to an artificer, and make jewelry. Stuff that’s useful to all classes, and not just a specific class. She’s now level 10, which is great. I’ve been making necklaces, rings, and earrings that cost me 4silver each to make, and selling them (well) on the broker for 20-25silver each. Nice little profit there and it’s very easy to make. It does require me to harvest gems, but I don’t mind that at all.

As a kojan artificer I could learn all styles of gems (for jewelry) but only actually form pieces from the marques and oval shaped ones. I decided to head to Thestra and learn their two styles as well (which let me use dex and str, the kojan one is con and vit). I headed to New Targonor, managed to find Linnike Velra some how (the starter person of the quest) who told me to talk to three other npc, and make three wooden staffs and then I’d learn their style.

Thank goodness for Randolph. I flew to Bordinor’s Cleft (which is BEAUTIFUL, nestled in the rocky hills as dwarves reside there), spoke with Brondar Northwall, from there traveled to Leth Nurae, and spoke with Tirarre Welsare, and then finally ran to Teln Oshken in Tush. Returned to NT, and recieved my 50 faction with the Thestra Artisans as well as the ability to learn their jewelry style - only one issue.

To actually buy the recipes, you need 100 faction. Easy enough, headed to Stormwatch and completed a couple of single light blue work orders for the faction I needed. Also managed to ding level 10, and picked up the new recipes. Woot.

Crafting is a game all in its own. Sure, now I can make the Thestra stuff, but there’s also Qalia that I have yet to do (which you also need to work 50 faction for to buy their stuff) and I’m level 10, which means at 11 I’ll be doing my tier quest and the continental style of crafting is something you have to learn every time you reach a new tier. So if I want to make the Thestra jewelry for level 11+ (or Qalia for that matter) I’ll have to do a new quest.

There’s also quests for crafting gear, quests for faction, so many wonderful things. For anyone who’s just starting to get into it all, I highly suggest checking out this crafting site here. I wanted to make sure I got the crafting stuff done also before they took away Randolph, who makes it easy for me to travel around (ack, gotta pick up the rest of those rifts on a few characters too!) and I just had a good time making items that were actually useful. I still haven’t figured everything out yet, like where to put points and what to decrease in points, and what gear to focus on, but I am having a good time. Which is the most important, right?

Ignoring the character model there for a minute (they’re getting revamped, eventually) one of the things I absolutely love about Vanguard, is the crafting. Why? Because it’s hard, and not hard to the point of impossible, but hard enough. In WoW everything is an instant combine, you can make batches (so long as you have the materials on you, also just called “mats”) and EQ2 has slowly been moving away from complicated by introducing various new things through the years. How many people remember (and miss) subcombines. Then everyone was given the ability to make everything (when we started, if you were a sage, you had to find an alchemist to make ink, a woodworker to make quills, an alchemist to make the WoRTs (washes oils resins tempers) and so on and so forth). Now it even sets up your entire crafting UI for you, and uses far less power then it ever used to. There’s also no craft below pristine any more, in stead you just get the item back.

Such is not the case with Vanguard crafting. Pictured above is my artificer (level 6 /flex) working away. Literally. It sort of feels like you’re playing the sims when you craft because everyone does little auto-emotes like “Hmmm” Or “ARRRGH!!” and then stomps their foot if a process has gone bad. Quite amusing (though if you’re crafting in long batches it can get tiring). Crafting is basically a management of points - gear - fuels - and tools. Number one, you have an entire tab for it since it’s a sphere. You get crafting clothes (and attributes where you can designate points later). I’m not going to try to explain the entire complex process, but I will try to explain basically what it’s about. It’s all about getting from point D to point A (hopefully) before running out of points. You also get complications showing up along the way - more frequently if 1. Your gear sucks. 2. Your gear needs to be mended (that’s right, you need to repair even crafting gear, not just adventuring gear) and 3. Tools suck 4. Recipes are just too far over your level.

There are 4 processes basically to every item you make. There’s finishing (a complete item that would be ready to wear afterwards) and refining (making those sub components). You use points for everything, and crafting has grades, A of course being the best. Or rather - 100% A. Since you can be into the A zone and not be at the end of it. That’s the green bar along the top left of the crafting UI (says I’m at C grade, I’m doing a work order here and I try to aim for C-D depending on the difficulty). Name of the game is to make the item and not run out of points before the end stage (or else you have to stop the process - and you loose everything.
You load your “table” with items - fuel, raws, and then items to counter complications. Most of the time you have to guess, and you only have a limited amount of table space. So you could have fuel, raws, and then bandages and water. Then a complication comes up that uses something you don’t have on your table, and you’re screwed, you have to craft through it. Which can of course damage the piece you’re working on. In the screen shot, Faralithe is using bandages and stretching to stave off a complication (which is the weird icon on the far right of the crafting UI).

Anyhow. The point was - I love crafting in Vanguard. It’s complex. There are guides for it - there’s crafting quests. There are crafting styles. If I want to go craft in Thestra, I’d have to earn faction with their tradeskillers, and then learn their style of recipes. This is really pronounced in ships as well. If you buy a Kojan sloop it has a different graphic then the Thestra one. Gear has different effects based on where it was crafted. It’s the first time since EQ1 where I’ve actually felt some pride in my work. In EQ1 you had hefty chances to fail at combines completely and loose your materials (though they did start ‘changing’ that with a large amount of aa you could put into your crafts to prevent failing and losing materials). What Vanguard realized early on is that there’s a niche of players out there who LOVE crafting. They take hefty pride in their work, and complicated (now granted, not TOO complicated) is a good thing. It’s a timely sphere to level up but well worth it. It’s also one of the best examples at relationships between crafters and adventurers. There is a huge market of people who don’t want to put in the time it takes to level a craft - which is great, they’ll harvest, and sell to crafters. Who in turn, sell back to adventurers. A nice little path. Now, there is some complaints of course, of people who feel crafters charge too much, that crafters are making far too much coin - but you can still make a good amount from selling your resources alone, especially rare ones.

On a non-crafting related note, I joined “Safe Haven” last night, which is one of those guilds who span across multiple games (they’re also located on Antonia Bayle in EQ2). I applied a few days ago, just looking for a simple home with some quiet chatter from time to time. They’re nice and friendly and plan out guild events, about 11 of us on constantly last night. Most of the people I’ve seen so far range from level 30-40 or so, even though I’m quite a bit smaller it was nice to feel welcome.

Level 23, Satia staring at.. well.. what IS that?

My blood mage finally hit 23 last night, and I’ve got another small complaint (of course I do!) about Vanguard, but it’s something a lot of people probably like about the game. There’s no real indication of where you should go to leve. Especially coming from other continents. So while I finished almost all of the quests between Misthaven’s Crossing and Stormwynd and Ulla’s Tower and that general area, I have no idea where to head to next, the quests don’t send me anywhere else. I’ve done the vampire slayer quests and if I continue randomly to the next marked outpost on my map, the area is crawling with level 27-28-29 mobs, which are a little bit out of my league right now.

Moving to another continent provides me with the same issue, no idea where I should be. So I’ve been using the /who all command to figure out where a good area may be to level up. /Who all 19 25 for example. The majority of people were in the areas that I’d already been to. Small wonder. Then there’s the groups who are constantly working on the Infineum chain, those who are working on the Tsang weapons, there’s the Hilsbury Manor area, and numerous other dungeon type places. This game really is centered around having a static group (or at least a bunch of willing people to group with) so if you’re used to solo’ing (like I am) after the 14-15 level range, you’ll find it difficult to get much accomplished. Now, that’s not always a bad thing, this is an MMO after all, why play it just to spend time alone. But anything that requires a group also typically takes a lot of time to finish as well. So if you don’t quite have the hours of game play you need, or are simply in one of those moods where you’d rather be alone, then the game at times could seem a little stale for you.

I did splurge and finally buy myself a blue dress (in skill range, not in colour) last night, the green one was looking a little rough around the edges. I also found a neck piece upgrade, and a new belt, and new gloves. It’s interesting playing a blood mage, I typically try to balance out my + spell damage focus gear, with my + healing focus gear. It’s typically better for me to have + healing on, because when I’m in my dps stance, my spells already do 25% more, add some sizeable heals to that, and I’m pretty set. I can’t typically play in DPS mode in a group though. Every 5 seconds my health drops by 5% to give me blood points. It means I’m constantly healing not only myself, but whomever is tanking (or ganking). Though I can siphon health away from mobs quite nicely, it still means I’m using power to heal two people instead of just one, and with only one group heal that requires a lot of power to cast, it’s not exactly the best way to conserve energy.

Also got to uh, level 6 outfitter. Yes, I know, slacking big time. But I was an outfitter, then switched to artificer, then switched back to outfitter. With the double exp weekend in, I haven’t crafted hardly at all. Plus we all know how much of a grind crafting is (in pretty much every MMO I know, except WoW where it’s as easy as clicking one button for instant no-fail combines so long as you have the required materials). Hoping to work that a little bit more, and perhaps find my way to 24. We’ll see how it goes.