Finally!

I’ll write more about this tomorrow, for now, I’m just glad my third epic is finally done - that makes warden, troubador, and coercer.

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

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

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

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

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

Woopsie

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

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

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

Finally, I finished off the +40,000 faction required for the warden epic. All that’s left now, is Chelsith, which I’m looking forward to. I haven’t been in the instance very often, only a handful of times on both the troubador and the warden, never with the coercer (aside from her few epic updates). A lot of people dislike the zone due to the blobs that fly about and like to agro the group just as they’re walking beneath them - but I don’t mind at all, it keeps things exciting.

While working on my Reet faction, the small group (myself, a shadowknight, and a defiler) also stumbled across four named. I had not killed them before, so the aa alone was nice. They also all dropped ornate, one of which was the wrist piece pictured above that just screams bard (it would scream it louder if it had some intelligence on it, but hey I’ll take what I can get). Congratulations to Goudia for that nice bit. A warden master also dropped, my level 74 pet spell. Looking forward to using that.

Servers came down for their daily update, so the rest of the epic is on hold. I’m eager to get it done though and add to my epic collection.

Finished writing my third article for Beckett, and now I just have one to go. I’m of course, VERY happy about that. Managed to get screen shots together as well.

Hopefully, today I’ll be getting a new harddrive. I can’t store anything more on the one I have, and with all of the video games, well things are getting a little crowded.

I watched the fourth and fith episodes of Zero No Tsukaima, which was funny and the story is progressing along nicely. Of course the human (commoner) familiar that Louise summoned is no regular person and as he stumbles into bits of his Japanese heritage lost in this magical world, it is apparent that something big must be coming up next. Gotta say, I do love my anime, and another huge thank you to Flavius for sending it my way. I’ll have to pester for some more episodes, especially since I have more crafters to level up, hehehe.

The warden epic has been one of those epics that should be easier then I found it. Only due to the fact that it requires 40,000 faction with the Synd Reet and for some odd reason, it’s going slowly. I am up to 21,900 faction currently on Arysh - doing the repeatable 5,000 faction quest that sends me into sebilis to fight heroic iksars. The part that boggles me is that Goudia, has 39,000 faction with the Reet, and she has never done any of the Sebilis quests. I have no idea where I got it from. I’ve been trying to think of other Reet factions located in Norrath some where that I may have missed while leveling up with Arysh. Silhouette is also sporting very high faction with the Reet, and I’ve never done the Sebilis quests on her either.

Aside from working on the faction, I needed a named in Sebilis (in the laboratory, which I got), an update in Chardok off of the archmagus (which I also got eventually, they were being stingy) and a kill from the Gear encounter in Maidens. I actually played my troubador in Madiens because dps was being stingy, and switched out for that one fight since 3 healers would be just fine for it, the encounter does not do anything special nor does it take a lot of skill.

All that is left (aside from the remaining faction) is a kill in Chelsith, which I’m looking forward to, I enjoy the zone. Then it is just a matter of running around talking to various npc druids, and my third epic will be completed. I know, I’ve been slacking big time on it. The faction is the only portion I disliked. Much like I disliked having to harvest 10 xegonite on the troubador. The coercer epic was still by far the easiest I completed, having it take no more then one day from start to finish. It will be nice to be wielding that finally, I’m getting tired of being level 80 without it.

Aside from working on the epic, I found some anime I had not watched yet, sent to me by a good friend. It is one of those cute girlie anime that not everyone likes since there is no blood and guts. It’s called “Zero No Tsukaima” and it’s about this girl in a magic academy (much like your Harry Potter) who fails at almost every spell she ever attempts, typically with large explosions as consequences. She’s in a second year class and they’re to summon familiars - and she summons a human as hers. I’m only on the fourth episode, and it’s typically around the 10th episode that things get interesting.

Anyhow, the whole point was - while I’m watching anime I am also typically crafting. I put the video on top of EQ2 and it’s far better to grind crafting while watching something interesting, other wise I just end up staring at the craft walls, or even worse, the 70-79 channels.

Silhouette hit level 74 carpenter, and is just reaching 75 now. Guild status is flowing again, although quite a bit slower now that we’ve reached level 21. It’s still my goal to try to hit 30, we’ll see how that goes.

Busy day today, I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!

It’s not too often I play my warden any more, for a few reasons. I suppose the main one would be that they’re exceptionally common in game. Everyone and their dog seems to have one tucked away if for nothing more then porting purposes. They’re also one of the easiest healers to play (I’ve played them all) and while they have very little in the way of hp or mitigation buffs (we leave that to the clerics) their heal over time (HoT) are fantastic.

So when an RE2 (RunnyeyeII) group came up with a few friends, of course I jumped at the chance, even though I was off playing some other game (I know, how dare I). It was a group of people that I’ve played with before on numerous occasions, so I wasn’t too worried. At first I was going to join on my troubador, but we really needed more dps (the group consisted of: Inquisitor, Shadowknight, Warlock, Illusionist, Defiler, and myself as Troubador to start). I switched out for the warden and the defiler switched out to his main, a ranger.

We had two deaths total in the zone, and an extra one for me who got pummeled by an AoE on incoming. We pulled the last encounter flawlessly, and during the run the fabled fighter cloak dropped, which of course went to the shadownight who had been running the zone constantly since it released, waiting for that drop.

We transmuted just about everything in the zone, 9 legendary total. Two master chests dropped, the fighter ring also dropped and no one could use it so it went to an alt. I did get Arysh an upgrade to her helm, so I was happy. Though it was painful to transmute all of the items that my troubador could have used. The evening was relaxing and friendly, we talked away on the EQII voice chat and had a pretty good time.

I’ve been falling behind in my crafting, and I’m hoping to spend some time fixing that. This week in particular is going to be hellish though, so we’ll just have to see. Nostalgia is going to meet again on Thursday, this time for some Plane of Hate fun. I hope to get in game and delevel Ellithia the remaining two levels, and perhaps work at getting a few more aa on Qutey and Nala before then. Again it depends on this week though, lots of things coming up.

Once upon a time, I had a cleric named Ellithia, on an account given to me by a friend who no longer played. I loved the cleric, and worked  hard on her, even though she never raided. Over time, as I switched to new games (namely EQ2) and stopped paying for multiple accounts, I lost the log in information for this account. So when Nostalgia started up, I figured it was my chance to start the cleric without having to worry about looking for a group. Ishbel became my new cleric.

After a week or two of Nostalgia, I was looking through an old journal of mine and stumbled across the log in information for Ellithia. I was so happy. Bound and determined not to make the same mistake again, and at the time not wanting to have more then one account open, I moved her over to my main account - which of course left me with two clerics now.

Over time I’ve switched my Nostalgia character around a lot depending on what we needed. It’s something I enjoy, being versatile like that. I have played a rogue for a brief time (who met an untimely end in a pot of stew), a necromancer (who I decided was better suited to solo play), the cleric, the druid, and the beastlord. Ellithia has veteran rewards associated with her, as did Ishbel. My account can only claim two years worth - though it’s been sitting at 2.7 granted for a few months now so I’m beginning to wonder.

Anyhow. I decided yesterday - why not get rid of one of my clerics. Free up that veteran reward for Qutey, who I’ll be playing quite frequently, and then also free up a character slot (not that I really need it).

So, which cleric… well that was the easy choice. While Ishbel is a great character - she doesn’t have her epic, and I have no inclination to do it, especially since I’ve already done it on Ellithia. Ellithia also has 92aa, and while her gear is under where the current standards are due to the defiant stuff, and she actually had less power then Ishbel, I knew that would open up the opportunity to work on her. Plus, I put a lot of time into Ellithia since she’s an older character. Barely any time was spent on Ishbel.

The only thing left remaining was the fact that Ellithia was level 70, and my Nostalgia group will be 55 for another week, then headed towards 60.

So yesterday for the better part of an afternoon I sacrificed Ellithia down from leve 70 to level 60. Honestly, I had no issues doing it. Leveling is so much faster now, and I’d rather actually have some use for her instead of just seeing the character rot. With the Nostalgia group within my level range, it’s really nice. I first bound her to the bottom of Gunthak, pictured above, and let her drown. That was taking far too long though so I came up with a new plan.

I headed over to The Hole, and bound her to the top. Falling to my death over and  over (second screnshot) for some wary traveler below. The only bad part is that each death only granted a 6% experience loss. So in order to lose 10 levels, I had to die a LOT. I had company while I did this though. Kasul, has decided to join up on our Friday Nostalgia with his level 65 shaman. He took the character down to level 60 so that he was able to join us. Going to be great having another person around and I know he’s looking forward to it as well.

I’m not huge on sports, aside from hockey which is a given, but I do love the Olympics. This year is the 29th summer Olympics, and I watched (and am still watching) the opening ceremonies right now. Our Canadian athletes made their way across the stadium floor and it’s hard not to burst into cheers from my living room.

We qualified for 25/28 of the events, missing out on Volleyball, Handball, and Basketball. I was sad to hear about the basketball bit, though there are reasons behind it (like our main athlete not wanting to partake this year because he’s been so many times before, and is just so busy).

I loved the beauty of the ceremony. I loved what was done with the ‘footprint’ fireworks leading up to the building, it was great to watch and I got chills. All of the cultural aspects were well done as well.

It’s not the winter Olympics.. but for now it will do. Vancouver in 2010, see you there!

“Shortly after the Shissar were run out of Kunark, a resort by the name of Veksar was built by the Kylong Iksar Tribe. After standing upon a lake in the middle of Kunark for nearly 1,000 years, Veksar was destroyed by the dragon Garudon, and sunk to the bottom of what is now known as the Lake of Ill Omen.

Now beneath the surface of the lake, Veksar is inhabited by sealife and the spirits of those killed in the incident. It is said that the spirit of the dragon Garudon also resides somewhere in the ruins. Only few adventurers who have chosen to trespass in to Veksar’s confines have been able to return to tell about it.” - Allakhazam

Last night Nostalgia headed to Veksar, a day early since Tipa is away tomorrow. The night started out much like it always does, a few of us gathered early and decided to just camp the entrance, filled with bloodgill shaman and warriors. A named did wander by, dropping an upgrade for my beastlord (though it would have been an upgrade to my druid as well). I ended up boxing for the evening, which I don’t mind in the slightest, since I’ve got three characters in the appropriate level ranges, if there’s room, why not (as long as it doesn’t cause wipes, cough cough). Warmnungar, Rogbog, and I stayed there for a bit until Tipa logged in, and we continued to wack away at encounters. Mantis joined us, an enchanter (to which I was eternally greatful for, since we’ve lost our Gnewton, not that he’s replaceable at all. I’d give some organs to see him returned).

I started out playing Qutey, but we didn’t have a cleric (Coldheat) like we usually do either, so as more people started showing up I swapped out for Ishbel who I’d neglected to level past 52. Experience in zones that are not hot zones, are actually quite slow. Ishbel went from 52 to 70% through 53 in the time she was there, and that was with using lesson of the devoted, which boosts your exp gain for 30 minutes. We did have a LOT of fun though. The monk and druid who typically join up were there as well, so we split into two groups. My group kept camping the shop area and the golems outside. We only spawned one named, the Behemoth, which dropped a robe for Mantis.

We also got one piece of defiant gear to drop, leather gloves. Aside from that, lots and lots of weapons that you can turn in for faction.

I’ve farmed and camped Veksar for months at a time in the past with a good friend of mine, so going back certainly held some very fond memories. There was an 80 beastlord in the zone going after some clicky summon pet that I will have to look into. Group two also spawned a named but it.. vanished, after a 65 rogue wandered into the zone. Not too hard to tell what happened there.

Each one of my characters is sitting at around 9aa or so which is not a great amount, but I’ve been trying to level them up as well as work on those aa. I believe the level cap may be raising to 60, or perhaps we’ll be staying at 55 for another week, I’m not certain. Once the cap is raised to 60 I know we’ll be spending at least two months at that level, which is fantastic. Perhaps I’ll get some crafting done too. Next week, we’re off to hate!

The only thing I like more then trying to find outfits for my characters, is perhaps trying to find hats for them. Since it’s not likely that I’ll be attending any T7 raids any more or T6 where class specific gear dropped with nifty graphics, I’ve had to scrounge some what. I know there are legendary quested class hats that my troubador has yet to complete - but I forget what the graphic on these were. I may be thinking of the dirge one. Since they get everything else that’s cool (stoneskin, rez, parry mods, dps mods) it would only make sense that they have the cool hat too. At least in my eyes.

I did manage to find a troubador only hat from vaults though, the legendary ones that drop at the end of the instance. Pictured above on Goudia, who’s taken to hiding out in dark elf form so she doesn’t scare too many people away as a ratonga. It’s so hard to get a good meal when the bartender keeps trying to shoo you out of the restaurant.

I’m a sucker for the feathered caps, what can I say. They just look so neat.

Speaking of neat, if you haven’t taken a look at the revamped heritage quests yet, go visit the shady swashbuckler on the docks of Nektulos forest and see what they’re looking like now. This charm slot item used to have almost no stats. Now it’s something I would have seriously considered wearing (before they came out with the legendary provisioner made charm items). Very handy for the level that this quest is granted at.

The Cloak of Flames is another heritage quest that’s really been upgraded for the better. I’ve actually never completed this quest on a single one of my characters, and so that’s my goal for today. If not to complete it, then at least to finish collecting the pages that drop for it. Since it should be grey to me now, I’m hoping it doesn’t present too much of a problem. But I am a troubador, so you never know.

Tonight Nostalgia is meeting for some Veksar fun. I’m really looking forward to it, this is one of my favorite zones and I spent a lot of time there in the past. Even though the basic drops (aside from haste items) may not be complete upgrades since all the defiant stuff that’s floating around, it’ll still be wonderful to go back. Qutey is who I’m playing these days. While I was having fun on the cleric, I’d already leveled a cleric and obtained the epic, so I wanted to try to do something new. Qutey has started her druid 1.0 and I’ll be continuing on that. She’s up to 8aa now I believe, and Nala just reached her first four. Not exactly the fastest of things to obtain for me, at least not when I box. Have I mentioned yet that I’m excited about tonight? Well, I certainly am.

I didn’t mean to, it started out as a complete acciddent. Well, maybe not quite.

I created another alt. A dirge this time, to experience the other side of the coin. While a lot of people make alts, I only know a handful who make alts that are the other side of the character they already have. I love enchanters, and I have both an illusionist, and a coercer. I like my troubador - in concept, but dislike the way she’s never wanted on groups. So I decided to make a dirge.

Level 23 and rising so far. I’ve been a low level dirge, Goudia betrayed back and forth a handful of times before I settled her as a troubador at level 60 or so.

Remember that GU thing where SOE implimented smart loot for adepts and masters? Well, if you have a level 80 in the group mentoring, it does not seem to work. Kasul and I grouped on our lowbies, and chests that dropped were for either myself or him. It was great. Even alone I was getting useful chests. With the Shadowknight mentored though, I was getting everything under the sun.

Not that I can complain, I did manage to get 21 masters yesterday running through Wailing Caverns and Stormhold. Fun? You bet. I also managed to get two fabled bits of gear.

Rez, stoneskin, and a hate transfer, plus a parry buff. Sounds pretty nice to me. Does this mean the end of my troubador? We’ll see. Perhaps in the next expansion troubadors will get something that makes me a valuable aspect of a group instead of just a buff bot on a raid.