What have I been up to in EQ2 lately, you may ask. Well. Things have been pretty busy – which is a sure indication of why I haven’t been keeping up as steadily with my posts as I should be! I have deadlines for work looming in and that always makes for some sporadic posting as well as a lot of real life happening at the moment. Things should settle back down in a few weeks (just in time for them to take off again, as always).

I’ve joined up with a new guild on Oasis, and I’ve been busy trying to get comfortable – which is harder then it sounds. All 12 of my EQ2 characters are over there now, and I’m happy that I seem to have at least broken myself from the multi server gaming habit. It was just getting too hard to be in three places at once and I was constantly left feeling as though I was letting someone down by not playing with them on their server. What’s the point if I’m not having any fun myself. I’ve added three of my characters to the new guild, my mystic, the dirge, and my paladin (mostly so I could grind crafting writs). So far things are going nicely. I got to explore Erudian Research Halls with them, and on Wednesday we did Ward of Elements, which was fun (especially since most of us were 90 and hence the zone was green).

The dirge is now level 88, and half way through 89. I’m excited, although I have a LOT of work to do on this character still. She only has 112 aa and that hurts very badly. That’s what you get from power leveling though. The paladin is also at level 82, almost 83, and I’ve been doing battlegrounds with her which I quite enjoy. There’s something decidedly satisfying about taunting attackers off of your dps so that your dps can cause their heads to explode. I’ve got her wearing the level 80 set of PvP gear, which doesn’t do much for me in terms of PvE, but that’s alright.

Crafting has taken a small back seat while I just roam around Norrath looking for trouble. I’ll get back to it before too long no doubt, as I’d really like all 9 crafters at level 90. We’ll just have to see how that goes.

In the mean time, it’s FRIDAY and I’m looking forward to hearing about everyone and their adventures at PAX East this weekend. I won’t be attending – but I WILL be going to the SOE Fan Faire in August. Hope to see everyone there!

While there have been some mixed feelings about the content of Sentinel’s Fate, one thing that has NOT been up for debate is how absolutely beautiful the newest expansion is. As groups made their way through instances last night all we could hear was how amazing everything looked, especially those zones under water. The graphic teams outdid themselves this year, and I’m proud to be able to show that sort of thing off. I absolutely love being able to ‘fly’ around via the landing pads, and just marvel at how everything looks.

I spent some time working on the crafting chain of quests yesterday, and harvesting. When I wasn’t doing that I was working on my 2nd crafter (who managed to hit 90 just after dinner) my jeweler. Now I’ve got a 90 jeweler and alchemist (taking care of scout skills as well as fighters). Next on my ‘to do’ list is a carpenter, so I can ogle all of the amazing house items. I enjoy the fact that I’m getting the bonus’ again for having max level characters, I knew I would miss it once it was gone.

I don’t imagine I’ll be working another adventurer up to 90 any time soon as there is plenty for me to do with the one I have, but I do want the crafters to 90 (for obvious reasons). I hope everyone else is having an amazing time in game, and I’ll see you in Norrath!

I figure that title is bound to get me the most spam comments I can possibly get, aside from maybe “how to level from 1-80 in an hour” or some other similar title. When you get down to the nitty gritty of EQ2 you really don’t need money for a whole lot. If you’re used to running instances your master spells will drop and there are quite a few zones that have masters on smart loot, in both RoK and TSO. Then there are the research assistants and their monthly (or less if they’re lower level) masters available to players, gear that comes from questing (a la shard runs) and if you’re a raider you’re taken care of pretty well too. There are repair bills but then there are also raids that pay a nice amount, and if your guild sells gear at all chances are you’re used to a guild split every so often.

If you don’t have a plethora of alts chances are you can see some fairly good coin from doing quests and selling items – of course alts are expensive, to gear them out and purchase their masters (or expert skills) on top of the ones you’re trying to gain for your main can be a little annoying. Multiply this by 10+ (yes, some of us have that many alts) and it’s a very expensive hobby. So how do you off set that cost?

One of my main methods of making coin is to craft. On most servers this would not be a good form of income, in fact on most other (non rp servers I’m talking here) servers it’s better to actually sell the rare components rather then to craft something from it and try to sell that. Whether it is due to the number of people per server who harvest or some other factor I’m not quite sure – anyhow – on Antonia Bayle most of my coin comes from selling items in the 20-60 level range. It seems like everyone has an alt, and everyone wants to twink them out.

I can buy severed fir for 12g a shot (some times lower) create a bow or club from it and put it for sale for anywhere between 25-50g (as noted on my sales log) and it will typically sell on the same day that I’ve put it for sale. The problem is knowing the market, and figuring it out. It takes some time. I’ve always known lower level items sell exceptionally well on the roleplay servers since I’ve played there, there’s simply more people between those levels then end game.

Cloth is another good seller (or leather I suppose) there’s lots of druids and brawlers leveling through the ranks, and I always find a short supply of woven gear for my own characters, so I figured putting some up for sale would be a good thing. Furniture also sells pretty well, there are a lot of avid house decorators out there who run out of this item or that and when budget isn’t a huge issue they don’t mind purchasing that last item from the broker.

I’ve never found it that hard to make money in EQ2, I have had over 500p at one point in time and I don’t really try to make coin or at least I haven’t in quite some time. It wasn’t until I was looking over my reserves yesterday that I noticed I was well below 20p between both my accounts, and that had to change. Now if only I’d stop creating all these alts who seem to take coin from me before I make it to the bank..

Where has the weekend gone! It was over far too quick and now it’s back to the week day grind which seems to include the heavy scent of tar since they’re working on the school across the street from me and that’s pretty much all I can smell. Gross. Anyhow!

It was a productive weekend game wise, and Ellithia (mystic) got her very first book randomly mailed to her to add to the library! I was pleased as punch, and sent a little coin in return. I’ll be adding it to the library list and will probably go into more depth about it before too long. Again, if you have a book that is NOT on my player-written book list and want to donate one please feel free to mail it to Ellithia on Antonia Bayle and I will mail some coin back in return.

Since I had two carpenters on Antonia Bayle (one level 80, the other 66) yesterday I decided to respec the 2nd carpenter and change her to a woodworker. Thankfully she is on my main account, which grants the 50% bonus for having other level 80 crafters, and it wasn’t such a big deal to me to lose the 66 levels I’d already gained. I decided to make her a wood worker, since we don’t currently have one in guild. We do have an 80 tailor, sage, armorer, jeweler x2, and carpenter. All we lack is the provisioner, wood worker, and weapon smith. I also decided to just simply get it over and done with, and moved my final characters over to Antonia Bayle, which means I am now done transferring characters, and won’t be doing that any more. It cost close to $200 to move everyone but I’m really pleased that it’s over with and that all my characters are on their respected servers. I had no issues at all transferring – so you can now find me on Antonia Bayle as: Ellithia (mystic), Arysh (illusionist), Sharatan (coercer), Petites (templar) or Satia (dirge). I also have a little bruiser named Stargrace, but I haven’t spent any time at all leveling her yet, the others are all level 80.

Last night saw the guild all together for a brief time before sleep and work pulled us in different directions, once Ultann was finished with his WoE raid (a zone I still have not been to, nor do I even have access yet) and we decided to head to Anchor of Bazzul and see if we couldn’t get something nice to drop. I started out the zone on Satia my dirge but mid way through relogging to Sharatan the coercer because we were having some difficulty with the named that requires you to wear the special void beast suits in order to attack him. The encounter itself was not what was giving us the problem, but we agrod him early on and he bugs so that he refuses to move from the very start of that small section, creating issues when trying to pull. It wouldn’t be so bad but we were not done pulling the rest of the alcoves nor the mobs at the end. Pet pulling just created a mess with all of the encounters running for us, so I relogged to the enchanter and mez’d him so that we could continue pulling, and then we all climbed into our suits.

What an incredible change to have Calreth and Kasul both along, we have so much DPS in our little group now, it’s odd. I didn’t box (which in itself is new) and Ultann boxed his healer since mine is already wearing a full set of T2 shard gear, Noc needs a few more pieces (and shards). I’m slowly gaining shards enough to make Sharatan her set, which will be nice.

Nothing of note dropped this time around, but yesterday when we did AoB the helm pictured above dropped, which was (needless to say) a significant upgrade for me. Still no sign of that void transfer earring, which seems about typical with us and our luck.

We do plan on trying palace for the first time ourselves, I don’t think we’ll have too much trouble until it comes to Varsoon. Even if we can take down the other named, that would be great. We’ll just have to see how it goes!

I hope everyone had an amazing weekend, and I hope this week is fantastic. No doubt you can find me in Norrath!

One of the reasons I have kept my love affair with EverQuest II for so long is the simple fact that there is SO much to see and do – even after all of this time. When I play other MMOs I mention from time to time that I get bored because I don’t want to always pvp, I don’t want to always craft, I don’t want to always group, or always solo. What I want is to be able to do whatever I feel like doing at that exact moment, and move from there. EQ2 is one of the few games that allows me to do this on a daily basis.

There are days when I want to go quest-crazy, and complete as many quests as I can, and there are a LOT of quests in EQ2. In fact looking at the EQ2 Questlist there are 6184 quests total recorded. Some of those are of course class specific quests, and ones that were removed from game or were only around for a limited time, but they still count. If you’re a fan of shiny collections (and lets face it, who isn’t?!) there are 421 shiny collections in game. I have barely completed 200 on any one of my characters. That’s a lot of shinies to work towards! Then of course there are days I would rather not go near quests at all, typically after one of my binges, hehe.

While no game has involved crafting into the actual game play as much as I would have personally liked, EQ2 comes the closest by adding crafter orientated quests to the game that players can complete without too much difficulty no matter their adventure level. It’s not perfect by any means but it sure comes close. If I feel like grinding out a few crafting levels while watching a movie it’s a perfectly viable option.

There is a fair selection of group and solo content – and if I run out of solo content I can always go back and do the group content that I may have out leveled (thus making it easier for me) and I’ll still get achievement points for doing so. I’m really looking forward to the update that will allow players to mentor to a specific level and thus complete content as level appropriate without having to always have a lowbie in group. It will be nice to complete old raids, be able to farm masters that may not get upgrades (enraging demeanor anyone?) and just pretend to be a lower level for once.

In fact how many times have you started playing a game your friends were on only to have to play alone while they play their mains – or have to constantly play ‘catch up’ before you could actually play together. I think the mentor system that EQ2 has is something that a lot of people over look. The ability to play with your friends no matter what level they may be is something that I really cherish. It doesn’t matter if I have 100 level 80 characters (scary thought) I can at least help out on my main character and not have to re-create a lowbie.

I spent this weekend cleaning up my two EQ2 accounts a little. I deleted three characters (including an 80 sage but we won’t talk about that!) that I had very little interest in playing any more (my 58 swashbuckler, 61 necromancer, and 61 bruiser). It freed up a little space on my second account should an urge ever overcome me again to create another alt (and of course it will) and trimmed down a little so I can actually clearly tell what level 80′s I have. On my main account I have 7 level 80′s as well as my level 74 paladin – a full account in other words. On my second account I only have 1 level 80 (the mystic) but hey I suppose there’s a goal to work the other 6 up. Of course when the next EQ2 expansion comes out I’ll have 10 levels to try to gain on everyone including new gear and new spells, but maybe by then I’ll settle down with a ‘main’ and turn all those into crafters.

Hah. Right.

I hope everyone had an amazing weekend, here’s hoping it’s also a fantastic week!