Dipped into Vanguard yesterday for a brief bit before real life tugged me away (which it’s been doing a whole lot lately) and got in an hour or two on my monk. Vanguard is one of those wonderful games where you can pop in for an hour or two (as long as you’ve logged out around your quest area) and get something done. Even without logging in at a quest area, the riftways make it quite easy to get around. Everything is relatively close by.

So it was that I glanced at my quest journal - and again was so impressed with the changes that they’ve made to the interface over the year. Being able to sort the quests by chunk and have it plainly say whether it’s solo or not, and have it colour coded, is just so very helpful.

Looking through it, I noticed I had quite a few quests in the CIS area - aside from the cloak which I’d already done a while ago. Before too long I was headed to a crevice in the mountains to battle spiders who were under the ruling of Nerachnia - a powerful spider queen. The spiders were all two dots, and fell easily enough. It also helped that I cam armed with a giant supply of raid and fly swatters and rolled up newspaper.

I ran into quite a few people while I was wandering about. Once those quests were cleared I continued on, and came across adventurers every which way. Those who think Telon is dead, are sorely mistaken. There are even guide events running these days.

Disciple is one of the more unique healers I’ve seen - but remember, I’m not exactly the most knowledgeable of mmo players, I’ve played EQ1/EQ2/VG/WoW and that’s the extent of my experience (adding WAR to the list later of course). Basically you’re a combination of monk and healer. Your attacks done in a specific order (or as I like to call it.. 6-7-8-9 on my keyboard) set off heals to your defensive target. One of your kicks has a HoT attached to it, you get feign death but it doesn’t always fool the mobs (much like EQ2’s FD can fail) and you’re a medium armor wearing class. The stats you want to go for are not wis and vit so much as other healers, but dex,str, and vit. The best part is you can practically scream out as you do cool ninja moves and fly through the air smashing your opponent to bits. It’s great. The moves and graphics of attacks for the disciple are top notch.

Where blood mages can’t heal if they can’t hit the mob with spell attacks, disciple are a lot alike in that they can’t heal without meleeing. If you like to be up close where the action is - and heal, this class is perfect for you. Disciples also use endurance, and mana. There are a few direct heals that use mana, and most of the melee attacks and specials use endurance. So far my disciple is lacking a little on the buff side of things, I only have two - and my stance, where as my blood mage has a whole slew of buffs plus symbiotes. Maybe the disciple gets them later, I’m only half way through 23 right now.

One thing that really strikes me as interesting about Vanguard and my play style specifically - is that I have yet to find a class that I find ‘boring’ or that I ‘don’t like’ and this includes the tank classes. I have 6 characters in Vanguard and I’m content to keep the count at that - but it would be very easy to make another alt and have a blast with it. That’s almost unheard of for me. In both EQ2 and WoW I refused to play tanks, I’m just not a tank person. In EQ1 I reluctantly play my tank (a shadowknight) and I’m not really interested in wizards. There’s one main reason I think why I enjoy Vanguards selections of characters so much more, and it’s simply because as they fight, they will (based on an action accomplished like a critical strike, or a parry) have a chain go off - hit the response to that chain, and in some cases (ie: disciple) another chain will go off, doing massive amounts of damage (or a heal, etc) and there are also counters, and spell checks, and all the rest. It makes the actual fighting a lot more interesting to me.

Anyhow. Hopefully Telon will be seeing more of me today. We’ll see how it goes!

Another Vanguard / EQ2 split night - and Growlius and I managed to finally ding level 40! This is some what of a mile stone for me in Vanguard, and I’m very happy that we’ve finally reached it. Only one more tier to work through to finally reach the cap and end game. We hung around our typical questing hub and cleared out a few white quests and even some yellow ones - which rewarded us with far better experience then all of the green quests we’d been pushing out lately. I think we started the evening at 60% exp or so, and it took roughly 3 hours to get the 40% we needed to ding.

Also got to see a few more models of mobs in Vanguard, I’d not seen these giant axe swingers before. Still in Qalia though, with all the bright sand.

Figured out how to get the collection bags for the bits that are dropping now too. The easiest way is to head to Khal, and wander over to the bind stone just outside the city. You’ll find a herald there talking about the fair, hail them and they give you a quest. Head to the fair, talk to a gnome standing there, and presto, you now have a huge bag that carries both collection pieces and harvesting tools.

Wait a second. Why does it carry harvesting tools, you may ask.

Well, in Vanguard you’re blessed with multiple equipment tabs. No doubt the developers of VG wanted a nice easily convertible bag slot. So these new collection bags are two fold. Number one, they hold collection pieces, of course - but they will also hold your harvesting tools. Which means tab over to the harvesting equipment tab, and remove that 5-6 slot bag you were wearing before, and equip this far larger bag. Put your tools in there, and your collection pieces, and you’re set. Bag space (or lack there of) is something everyone in VG complains about. You really don’t get enough room for everything with only 5 bag slots (that includes saddle bags) and one of them being a very small general ‘inventory’ bag that you can’t get rid of.

Once our adventures in Vanguard were over I headed to EverQuestII to join up with my typical Runnyeye group - this time playing warden. Group make up was Mystic, Illusionist, Dirge, Conj, Shadowknight, and myself. I must be cursed or something - in all the times I’ve done RE 2.0 I have NEVER seen a fabled cloak drop. Not my class, nor any other class. Last night a few pieces of the black alloy chain dropped, of course I was not on my scout though. We transmuted 5 of the drops, a few went to be sold on broker (the tradeable shields that are going as cheap as 20g now) and other random bits. We did die once, again on the final pull where for some reason my ‘cures’ would just spam over top of one another and not actually land to cure anything. Annoying.

Today, hopefully, I’ll be getting Silhouette OUT of T6 carpentry and into T7 (which I am so excited about!) I have another house decorating order up but it’s going to be far slower then the previous one because I’ll actually be making all of the bits myself for once. I’ll need level 80 to make everything I want.

Happy 4th of July to all my friends in the states, I hope you have a wonderful day!

Last night was another one of my VG / EQ2 split nights, amongst the fire works from Canada day which could be seen from where I was. Though I’ll never really understand why kids decide to shoot them off right outside my window on the street. “Just because” is more then likely their main reason.

Anyhow, in Vanguard, Growlius and I continued on our journey towards level 40. It’s inching by I have to admit but it’s mostly our own fault. We’ve been using exp potions for the past few levels and turning in handfulls of quests all at once. So in the past we’d spend an evening completing 10 quests or so at a hub, and then drink down a potion and turn them in and presto, another level. 100% bonus to experience as well with those, and unlike other games where potions may just cover one sphere (crafting, or adventuring) in Vanguard, each potion covers all three spheres - and quest experience is included which I adore.

In the last GU the quest journal went through a major revamp, one that I’m just getting used to now. It’s colour coded, and you can sort by numerous options - one being ‘by chunk’ which makes it FAR easier to tell what quests you have where. You can also display more then just the title in the list of quests - you can see the chunk it involves, as well as whether it’s group or solo, and even the date you got the quest. Our typical method for clearing these out is by chunk and sort them by level so the green (lower level) quests go first and we clear those out. Last night we cleared out the last green quest and all we’re left with are white - which I’m hoping means our experience will pick up. Ideally, that’s what it will mean.

We spent the night battling undead skeletons and mummies, and raiding an ark beneath the sands of Tar Janashir. I’m getting eager to explore something other then the bright white sands of Qalia - but this seems to be where the content is for these levels. Our goal is to hit 40 by the end of this weekend, but hopefully we’ll be accomplishing that well before.

40 is a level where in Vanguard you get numerous spells (aside from level 50 which is end game right now) and it will also mark us as being on the final stretch. At least in my eyes. After that it’s just 10 more levels and we’ll be ‘capped’ which is something I’m really looking forward to. Maybe I’ll even get to see APW and get key’d for it. I’ve never even given any thought to that.

Screen shot is me flying through Qalia, to a harvesting spot. Filled with dragons that are roaming around it’s not exactly the safest of areas, but it’s one of the best (best = quietest) places to get granite which is still selling for 4-5g a stack. Which reminds me.. I really need to level my carpenter and work on getting some sloops made, I’ve wanted a boat forever!

Last night Kasul and I came up with a cloak design for Nostalgia 2.0 It turned out pretty well I think - and of course the way cloak designs work is that they are unique per guild per server. So no one else has quite this shade of yellow with that symbol in the center. Works for me! Now we’ll be working towards level 20 (short term goal) and onwards to level 30 (long term goal) that will allow us to place edges on the cloak. Along the way of course we’re saving up status for a guild hall, which I’m excited about, even if there are only two ‘regular’ guild mates playing in this guild. We still work really hard.

As I was getting ready to make dinner last night and was mostly AFK in EQ2, I received a random tell from ‘Meddik’ on Najena. It made my day and I just had to mention it here. He/She said that they were a Stargrace groupie, and had been reading my blog for over a year now. I do get tells like that on occasion, and I still never know quite how to react to it. It makes me smile and sort of blush and fluster. I don’t have the most interesting blog out there - I don’t write about the mechanics of the game, or interviews with important people, or anything like that. It’s just my own personal gaming experiences which can be quite drab. So to know that people enjoy my writing is quite a rush. /Waves to Meddik.

I did end up doing more crafting in game - and managed to get the carpenter to level 55. Wow! I’m so very happy with that. Of course now I’ve spent almost 10p on supplies and books just for those five levels, and that would (idealy) mean another 10p to go (or more) for the next 5 levels before I reach T6. Not too keen on that. Again, what’s the point of watching my money in an mmo - I have no real expenses and I already watch coin enough in real life. I’m almost onto the next tier which should bring about even MORE exciting things to craft, and then at level 70 I can start crafting the faction based recipes which include some amazing rugs and jars of skulls and all sorts of interesting goodies. If I keep up this pace it shouldn’t be too long before I’m 80 - hopefully obtaining my carpenter epic, and then doing a complete revamp and crafting my entire house. I’ll be checking the forums plenty to get some ideas, like a fishtank. Popular items for a house to have these days and there’s apparently a quest in Gorowyn that I always skip that rewards you with a fish house item that can be placed as though it’s floating. I’ll have to look into this and see if I can’t find it.

I also popped into Vanguard last night to do some crafting before bed, Ardwulf was there and said hello! It’s been quite some time since I spoke to him. Apparently he’s thinking of joining Safe Haven, which is a wonderful guild on the Seradon server, with a branch on Antonia Bayle in EQ2 as well. Great people. I’d left the guild shortly after I left Vanguard previously, and have not looked into a guild yet since I’ve returned. Anyhow, MaddyCraft hasn’t been updated since GU3 (and we’re on GU5 now just passed) so I deleted the mod and went with default. Which means I actually spent most of the time making my macro’s for crafting with the G15 so that it’s not so much mouse clicking. No, this does NOT mean the process is automated, you can’t since you get complications that will ruin your crafting if you ignore them. It does reduce the amount of mouse clicking though.

As a final note - Happy Canada Day! I hope everyone is out enjoying the sun. Since I live in Ottawa I will be avoiding the 20,000+ people down at the parliament buildings, and watching the fire works from home.

I spent yesterday at the cottage, being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Today after getting some other chores done, I headed to Vanguard with Growlius to continue our questing around Tar Janashir, which we left about a month ago. It took a bit to get situated again. Remembering what keys did what. I thought it wasn’t possible for the sand in Qalia to get any brighter, but I was mistaken. I swear they lightened it further then it was, and it glares like bright snow no matter what my settings are at.

Before all that, I went to check out the MEST, which is the Mekalia Extravaganza of Science and Technology, and disappointing might I add. I was expecting an actual fair of sorts, instead it was a few gnomes standing under some tents. They give you quests for collection items. The rewards are mainly ancient coins, which can be turned in for faction to whatever city you’d like, commonly the faction you’d like a mount from eventually. There are some extra goodies along with a few of the quests, like boxes of fire works and a shrinking device. I guess after seeing EQ2 and WoW fairs, I was expecting a little… more.

Growlius and I got about 50% of a level, so we’re closing in on 40 fairly quickly, which is nice. We headed out after five dot cyclops, and had a blast being tested to remember what it was exactly that each of our classes did.

I’ll talk more about the changes to Vanguard tomorrow, when I’m not falling asleep at the desk.

In EQ2, I managed to take advantage of the double experience bonus that went on over the weekend. I got the monk to level 32, almost 33. She’s almost out of the “wow I’ve already done all this before a million times” phase, which I’m looking forward to.

I also managed (thanks to some coercing from Kasul) to stick around long enough to ding level 50 carpenter. That’s right, FINALLY I feel as though I am getting some where with my carpenter. She can start making the Maj’dul inspired furniture, which is fantastic. Along with plants, pillars, and all the other fun things. I have to do some harvesting for the tier, which is not fun at all. I was pleased with the progress though, that was three levels in a relatively short time tonight.

The guild also dinged level 15 due to all of the writs Kasul and myself managed to complete - which means we can choose a design for the guild cloak. Since there’s only two (and some times three) of us playing in Nostalgia 2.0 on the Najena server, I doubt it will be too hard of a decision to come up with a design that’s agreeable by everyone. The cost is 5p, which I’ll be giving.

Anyhow, more comprehensive posts tomorrow, I just wanted to write something quick before bed tonight. It’s a long weekend here in Canada, being Canada day on the 1st of July. I know next weekend is the 4th of July and Independence day for the states, so I hope everyone is having lots of fun, no matter what realm you find yourself in!

It’s completely Ardwulf’s fault, of course. His posts about Telon and finding his way along (again) made me itch to play the game, and why not, I’ve had station access for months now and have only taken advantage of a game or two here and there. I never disliked Vanguard, I’ve actually always spoken very highly of the game. However, I’m one of those people who constantly flip around from game to game depending on my moods. Bad for people I play with, but good for me.

Due to some other circumstances, I bid fair well to the Nostalgia meetings on Fridays - but will still be around in EQ1 on occasion and far more so in EQ2. I doubt anyone was too heartbroken, there’s plenty of members now and I’d missed the past few weeks of meetings due to real life (and broken computers). I dislike letting people down, and being unable to commit to the one day a week was making me feel very badly.

Anyhow. This weekend is double experience in EQ2, which is great. I plan on getting some craft levels on both the weaponsmith (62 so far) and carpenter (46 and holding steady) as well as the monk (28 and counting). Eyenstein, a friend I’ve known for about 4 years now, managed to get some trooper boots to drop - and since they were lore for him, offered me a fantastic deal. The little bardling is singing in style, now.

In Vanguard, I ran around harvesting with Gozad trying to remember what key does what. While I was away (just over a month) a lot changed. For one, SOE revamped my blood mage class. I have no idea what changes happened and assume I should speak to my trainer, and read some notes. I did find out we can make body bags to carry around our organs in, which is great - except they’re only 20 slot, and my personal bags are 28 slot. You obtain the spell at around level 24 (or so I heard) which makes it fantastic for newer players.

There are also collectibles in Telon - and I don’t have the slightest idea what these are. There’s a special bag that will hold your collectibles, as well as your harvesting tools. Just something I saw linked in the general channel today, I’ll really have to do some research. The living legacy promotion reaches into VG as well, with some free mounts for people and a month of free game play. I don’t mind missing out on this one, the mounts are going to be available to old and new, which is what EQ1/EQ2 should have done from the start.

The market is much like I left it. My house is still standing too, with 13 more weeks of rent paid off. The game itself seemed to run smoother - but that may just have been wishful thinking on my part. In the cities I still chugged around some until items were rendered properly, but I’m coming from a completely new instillation of the game.

There were people chattering away on channels, also good. Seems Telon is fairing pretty well on that at least. I heard lots of requests for groups, even though I spent my time (for now) harvesting. We’ll see how the rest of the weekend goes!

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been blogging, or why you do it. When you see something posted about yourself some place else with a link back to your site - you get a little excited. It’s no different with me, either. I may not be one of the best writers out there (I know I’m not, that should read) and I know I’m not as popular as a lot of them, either. I don’t have any visions of grandeur nor do I have articles that spawn comments as often as those I read, but when I come across something posted like this on the VGplayer site, I still get excited.

Of course, it was written a little bit ago, and I didn’t notice it until now since I’m a little lax in checking for links back to my site.

Speaking of which - I’ve added a whole lot more links down the mmo blog section. Anyone I link there is someone I actually read on a daily basis (and some times more then once) and a good portion are people I know in game (typically by me stalking them). I love the friendships I’ve made, and I’ve had a lot of fun discovering other people who write about the games that I enjoy so much.

So keep up the good work, everyone.

Some of the views in Telon just take your breath away. This is me in Tar Janashir (Qalia) looking down through a window in a tower where I found my blood mage trainer stashed away. There’s nothing else in the tower aside from the psionicist trainer and a sorcerer trainer, but the view was too fantastic to pass by without grabbing a few screen shots. There’s even a storm moving in further away.

Growlius and I were a little too big for this quest hub last night, but it was still a lot of fun. The area is rated for level 34-40 and so we grabbed a good number of quests and started with the easiest ones. Experience in Vanguard is pretty steady - if you go to quest hubs. If you’re just grinding mobs, it’s going to be very long and drawn out. We’re both excited to be so close to 40. I’d like to get 50 eventually, and at least feel as though I’d completed one sphere of the game. Once my adventure level catches up to my crafting level (45) it’ll be time to work on that again a bit. Aside from signets I don’t get any new recipes (houses I suppose if I want to work faction for Qalia and Thestra) so I haven’t been in a rush to get any more levels.

We were sent out to rescue some people from the Rhajiri camps scattered around Tar Janashir, and pick off some wild creatures in the area as well. We killed scorpions, and these giant oysters and clams (which looked like weird plants, go figure) as well as a number of skeletons and at least five named. Every time we happened across a name we joked BECAUSE THE NAME OF NAMED IS ALL IN CAPS AND MAKES THEM HARD TO MISS.

• Me: “Oh, look, it’s THREA RHAJIRI (linked with the command %to and the caps come too)”
• Growlius: “Wow! How did you ever know they were a named!”

A pair of yellow cloth shoulders dropped but aside from that the loot was sparse. We both still have quite a few quests for this area, we managed to get 40% experience using a 50% bonus potion, instead of the common 100% ones we were using for major quest hubs. I expect the experience to begin slowing down drastically for the next 10 levels, and as long as I can find things to do, I’m fine with that. I imagine tonight we’ll be going back to Tar Janashir to try and finish off the remainder of our quests before moving on. Both of us really want to hit 40 not only because it means we’re in the last leg of leveling, but because we both get a slew of new spells and skills. In vanguard you buy them every 2 levels from a trainer. There are also some ultra rare upgrades of these spells that can be found as mob drops, though I’ve yet to ever see one.

We didn’t encounter a single other person around our quest hub, and a quick /who showed only six people around at all including us. I’m not sure if that’s because there are simply better things to do at level 38/39 or if it’s because it was one of those slow nights. There were (as usual) around 10 people on in guild, each one pretty much doing their own thing. Eventually I still want to work up my carpenter, to make sloops (I used a friends, it was SO much fun) and to add more furniture to my house. House items also sell pretty well in Vanguard, and as more people level up and get coin there’s more of a calling for these things. Would be nice to have a little more pocket change. I’m sitting on 1p currently, which is not so bad considering I gave away everything I owned when I hosted the Safe Haven scavenger hunt a while back. As long as I can afford my spells, that’s all I’m concerned about. Hopefully tonights adventures are just as exciting, with a little more experience.

Last night was one of my two weekly Vanguard nights - and it was a lot of fun. Growlius and I got together at the Seawatch Coast to work on some of our Bounty Hunter quests. We’d also picked up 5-6 other quests that required killing in the area. So the majority of the evening was spent walking up and down the coast killing everything in our path. The guild was moderately busy with 8-10 people on, each doing their own thing. Growlius and I had to remember how to play our classes, as it’s been a little while. Plus with me playing two other mmo’s (EQ1/EQ2) I had to adjust my key commands slightly (alt G does not open the guild window in VG, as a constant reminder to myself). The quests were not too hard, and it’s probably better that way. We had to kill a few white four dots and I had to remember what all my spells did, but I found it was almost like riding a bike (it hasn’t been THAT long since I’ve played) and once I started playing again it all came back.

Vanguard was pretty busy, too. It was nice to see. We ran into a few other groups also working on their Bounty Hunter quests. We decided to use one of our 100% veteran experience rewards, which is what boosted up the experience by so much. By the end of the evening I was 60% into the next level, sitting comfortably at level 38. Which of course meant, new spells!

Most of the 9 spells were just upgrades to previous spells I had, but one converted my endurance (which I don’t use) into power for 30 minutes, which I think is fantastic. It can also be cast on anyone else. So if there’s any other mana using classes who don’t use their endurance at all, this buff is great for them.

After doing all of those BH quests we also walked away with a good amount of upgrades. Necklaces, pants, and a chest piece, all yellow or orange. It was a significant upgrade for me, my chest piece was just some common blue I’d found in previous travels. Since I’m a blood mage it’s important for me to keep up to par with my gear - if I have shoddy gear it means my spells won’t hit the mobs as easily, my heals can be resisted. I need to be able to actually hit the mob to guarantee a heal. Most of the time it’s not an issue, but some times we’re fighting red or purple encounters, and I have to rely on my target heals rather then life draining attacks. Either way.

It was a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to going back next week and maybe doing some crafting in between then and now so I can make some coin. Growlius loaded me up with a lot of harvested goods that he has no use for (and doesn’t want to be bothered to sell) so I’m going to see about turning those into items to sell on the broker. We’ll see how it goes. It’s always nice to have a little extra coin, and after giving all of mine away last time I played with the scavenger hunt - well, yeah.

I’m one of those people who work best with a schedule. That’s one of the reasons why I knew I’d love our Friday night Nostalgia group. I like being able to log in, and know what we’re doing. We don’t spend hours in game wasting the Friday night away doing that (which is the point, I’m sure). I’ve always been a follower more then a leader, so logging in and just being told where to head, is perfect for me too. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just my play style.

So me and a friend talked for a while and decided that since we’ve both got station access, why not pick two days a week to play Vanguard. The game *is* great and I still love it. It just wasn’t quite enough to hold my attention as a “one game only” sort of deal. There are three games I play now with station access, Vanguard, EQ2, and EQ1. So on Monday and Tuesday nights I’ll be playing Faydai, my level 37 blood mage, on the Seradon server in Vanguard. So far it’s just me and Growlius who will be playing, but more are welcome to join of course. We’re not starting from scratch or doing anything unusual aside from setting two specific days to play.

Then on Friday nights I’ve got the Nostalgia group which is coming along fantastic. I hit level 15 on Ishbel (cleric) which was high enough for me to wear the DoN cultural armor I had made. The game is down for 6 hours today, I had hopped to make my necromancer a set of gear as well. I made Lackey some yesterday, though he still has to add the augmentations to it.

At first I was leery about having a schedule for games. In the end though I think it’s exactly what I needed. That doesn’t mean things can’t change, or that everything is planned out, but at least I won’t run around wondering what to do so much of the time. The schedule is flexible enough that I still have four evenings a week to do whatever whim I may have. I typically game from 7-11 nightly, since I don’t watch tv I game. I do pop in a few times during the day (mostly afk, especially in EQ1 where I tend to leave a trader up to sell) but aside from that my days are filled with ‘real life’ whatever that is.

This morning I logged into Vanguard briefly, I don’t have much coin there any more since I gave most of it to guild mates before I took my break - but I didn’t want my house to run out of rent and then lose the T5 house I had built that I am still oh so proud of. Logging into game made me remember why I enjoyed it. I noticed I had mail — oopsie, a guild mate who hadn’t heard that I had switched games (again) sent me 150 dusky timber to build their components for a house. Suppose I’ll get to that later today. I’m hopefully also going to be doing some harvesting, so I can make a little more coin. My house is paid for the next 20 weeks, at least that’s one concern taken care of. Being able to afford my spells (since I get some at 38) would be a nice thing. We’ll see how it goes!