I have long been a fan of how EverQuest, EverQuestII, and Vanguard all reward their veteran players each year. Some times the rewards are more useful then others. Out of all three games that I play I find the ones in EverQuest to be the most helpful. The topic of veteran rewards came up in discussion yesterday as my trio was playing, so I decided to look up what the current veteran rewards are. 

You can find a list of them here, on the EverQuest tip of the week news archives. 

1st year – Lesson of the Devoted:
The player is surrounded by a beautiful blue/white glow as they gain double experience for half an hour every 20 hours.

2nd year - Infusion of the Faithful:
The player enjoys maximum resistances and statistics and a faster run speed for 15 minutes while he glows brightly with power. Usable once every 20 hours.

3rd year – Chaotic Jester:
Summons a Bristlebane puppet that persists for 15 minutes and will randomly cast various spells that provide benefits or minor penalties. Usable once every 20 hours.

4th year- Expedient Recovery:
All the player’s corpses are summoned to their feet and given 100% experience resurrection if they are still eligible. Usable once per week.

5th year – Steadfast Servant:
Summons a creature that casts healing spells upon the player and others nearby. Lasts for half an hour or until you zone. Usable once every 20 hours.

6th year – Staunch Recovery:
The player is healed with health, mana, and endurance fully restored. Usable once every 3 days.

7th year - Intensity of the Resolute:
Surrounds the player in a glow of energy and increases the power of the player’s melee abilities, spells and heals substantially for 1 minute. Usable once every 4 hours.

8th year – Throne of Heroes:
The player is teleported to the Throne of Heroes in the Guild Lobby. Usable every 72 minutes.

9th Year – Armor of Experience:
The player is granted several layers of protection from harm for 90 seconds or 10 strikes. This protection lessens as you take more damage. Usable once every 20 hours.

10th Year – Resupply Agent:
Summons a mechanical merchant to the player’s side who sells supplies and buys loot. He will stay up for 10 minutes or until dismissed by the player. Usable once every 20 hours.

The rewards from EQ2 include things like experience potions (that have a time range before they expire so it’s not exactly an endless supply), little appearance things (fairy that sits on your shoulder) and items along those lines. The five year reward also gave you an object that you could use once a week that would replenish your vitality – adventure vitality only. Still handy to have. 

The rewards from Vanguard include a lot of house items (which look incredible) and experience potions, as well as unique titles. Each furniture bundle consists of items from a particular race, with a distinctive look (which I adore). 

It’s these little things in game that I absolutely adore. While people were upset when the living legacy seemed to mainly reward new players and returning players and leave those veterans out in the lurch, it’s nice to see some sort of ‘thank you’ for being loyal to a game. Especially this day in age when everyone is bouncing all over the place playing multiple games for short amounts of time and never really settling (I can be blamed for doing this as well). 

Anyhow, hopefully everyone had an amazing weekend gaming this weekend and playing whatever game (if any) currently hold your attention. See you in Norrath!

Last night my little trio was supposed to head to Lavastorm and continue on with the DoN progression quests – however I wasn’t really in the mood to work on those (it happens) and so I decided to create two alts (one on each account) and play around on those for a little bit. Ultann and Ninga also came to play on alts, and we had a lot of fun. 

I created a gnome paladin so I could do some tinkering (love crafting, so much) and a halfling ranger so I could do some foraging (and have track available and what not). Ninga created a drakkin bard and twinked him out, Ultann had a low level paladin already waiting, so we set off to the top floor of Crescent Reach and killed bats and rats until we were big enough to kill zombie and skeletons, and then moved off to the bear caves. Hot zones don’t start until level 20, and the first one is Stonebrunt which can be difficult to fight in, so we stayed in CR for the time being. By the time my eyes were threatening to close we had reached level 15, which was pretty nice. I’ll probably spend a little time today shopping for some gear and purchasing spells for the two characters, maybe work up some skills. 

Tonight being Friday (woohoo weekend!) We’ll get back to playing the big’uns and continue with our DoN progression. I’m looking forward to earning a few more aa and excited about unlocking the next round of ‘special’ DoN aa that gives 250 health and mana. 

March is just around the corner, and with it the 10th anniversary for EQ. I’m excited to be playing this year, I have to admit. I’ve never really been around for the fabled events, and I know a little bit more about what will be happening since I asked the EQ team in San Diego. What are they? You’ll just have to log into EQ to see!

I hope everyone has an incredible Friday, no matter your game of choice. See you in Norrath (and more then likely Telon for a while today)!

Yesterday was all about progression through Dragons of Norrath, which was an expansion that released February 2005, so it’s quite old now. Ultann finished (most) of his unpacking, and managed to squeeze a few hours in game which was nice. My happy little trio headed to Lavastorm, and then debated which camp we were going to follow. Ninga already had his faction with the goodies, while Ultann (who was actually on his shadowknight for the evening) had none and though I’ve done the DoN missions before, I apparently also had not worked any faction. I believe at the time I was advised against turning in my tokens so that I could obtain crystals from both camps and purchase whatever it was I wanted from the merchants.

Speaking of purchases, that was why we were doing the DoN bits to begin with. Not only does the progression reward special unlocked aa (and regular aa of course) and spells, but one of the merchants also sells a pet focus item that I wanted. This lets me cast more powerful pets – and the ‘nice’ ones are super expensive, so this free one that Ninga happened to find was absolutely perfect. 

You can find a fairly clear walkthrough for the progression here on Zam – but keep in mind that once you’ve completed the first tier, you have to earn more faction for the second tier. 

We did missions for the evening, and trapsed through Lavaspinner’s Lair, Stillmoon Temple, The Accursed Nest, Thundercrest Isles, and Tirranun’s Delve, as well as our home base camp in Lavastorm, and The Broodlands. It was a lot of fun, and my two girls earned a lot of achievements. Kameeko managed to finish off the craft aa that allows you to raise more then one craft over 200, so she can now begin to work on all of them. Next I’ll be turning all of those into reduced failures. I haven’t decided the method I want to take yet in leveling them, I was contemplating brewing and baking simply because I dislike purchasing so much food and drink on both of my characters. We’ll see how that goes though. Tailoring and smithing are high up on my virtual list, and pottery near the bottom but still something I want to complete. 

Not sure what this Wednesday evening will bring, but I’m sure it will be fun, and I’ll write all about it tomorrow morning as always. On an unrelated note – EQ2 has some amazing changes and revamps coming in their next update, and I’ll be sure to write about that too. I’ve always loved the original Lavastorm in EQ2 but felt it was sorely neglected from simply being outdated. If the Everfrost revamp was any indication, Lavastorm will be exceptionally popular and players will once again frequent it as they should. More on that later!

Yesterday was a little bit of everything all done throughout the course of the day. I don’t remember what order it was done in, but it was all fun. I spent the late morning and early afternoon taking my brother out for pho here in the city, which was fantastic. After logging into EQ, Ninga decided I needed to hit level 72 on my necromancer so that she could purchase her newest pet from the vendor in Direwind. While every other spell may have a ‘level’ to it (ie: Rk, RkII, RkIII) the pets do not, so purchasing them from the vendor is perfectly ok. We hung out in the pit of Valdeholm, which is the level 70 hotzone, and it didn’t take too long before I’d managed to collect quite a few aa on Kameeko (the enchanter) and ding 72 on Minxes. Kameeko should be saving her aa to get useful helpful things for leveling up with the group – but instead she’s my crafting character, so after maxing out jewel crafting, I maxed out salvage, and then started putting points into unlocking other crafts above the 200 trivial mark (two to date). Once that is completed I’ll start putting my points into not failing those other crafts, and hopefully I’ll be working on getting them to 300. I haven’t decided if I am going to do the evolving trophies for all of the crafts or not – ideally I’d like to. We’ll see how that goes though. The trophies tend to be a pain in the arse, and they may just take up inventory space, not sure. I wish there were a way to combine all of the trophies into one big mega trophy. For all I know there may be. 

After Valdeholm it was time to do something a little more interesting. Apparently there is a (I want to say ear?) piece that drops from a rare named in Gyrospire Zeka, and when Ultann had a few minutes to log in and play for a bit my little trio headed there.

Heading there ended up being an adventure in itself, you have to get shot out of a canon to start, exactly like you do in EQ2 except it doesn’t turn you into a barrel. You also get flung by a catapult shortly after that to get to specific destinations. It was a lot of fun and a brand new experience for me in EQ. After we hung out around the zone line watching a group continuously die in front of us, we learned a little more about the zone. Turns out, that zone is hard. They hit hard especially when your tank is a monk – it doesn’t matter if they have 1700+ aa or not. We still did amazingly well for what we had (three ouf us + one bot enchanter + one bot healer + one mercenary) but after failing to gain access to the third level of the tower we were climbing we decided to head off to do something else. 

That ‘something else’ would be to do missions for Ultann to try to get him the fancy robe that I am wearing, not for him to wear because I know he has better – but the +400 mana clicky makes it worth while. 

Speaking of which, a huge thank you to Ninga, who gave me a new clicky to add to my collection yesterday. It is not exactly fancy, just summons my pet to me, but it’s still pretty awesome none the less. Love my clickies.

It was a great weekend and I had a lot of fun. Hopefully everyone else had an amazing time as well, and this weekn is off to a wonderful start. See you in Norrath!

Someone commented yesterday on my xfire numbers for EQ over the past week – and I had to laugh. I gently reminded them that in order to set up a trader in EQ you still have to be constantly online, so I’ve been leaving my computer on while my trader sits in the bazaar and does her thing. Spells are expensive after all, and I’m still getting back into the swing of things. From that stemmed a conversation about how ‘easy’ things appear to be in EQ now, and whether or not EQ is still the same immersing game that it used to be. 

I had to disagree with the argument, because while things may have changed over the past 10 years it’s still one of the most complicated games I’ve played in terms of just plain game play, not to mention the questing and crafting systems. When I first came back there were so many changes to take in that it felt like a different game – for about an hour and then I started to see the familiar patterns again that I’d seen back in 2002 when I first started. A few of the changes caught me off guard. For example when you die you no longer lose anything at all except for the experience, you return fully geared. The only reason you would have to obtain your corpse is to get a rez and re-gain your experience. You also no longer lose your spell set up when you die, the gems are still in their last positions. This doesn’t take away the need for saved spell lists since those are always handy but if you’re a low level and die and have forgotten to put together a saved spell list you won’t spend hours setting one up. For some reason (I’m not sure why) if you are not of appropriate level to wear a piece of gear – you can now still wear it. You won’t get any stats from that piece of gear but it will fit into your gear slot just fine. I’m not exactly sure what this change was for, but it’s interesting. 

Mercenaries and the experience you gain while leveling has been changed a lot – but there’s a good reason for this. The game is 10 years old after all. If it took you as long as it did at release to level, then you’d probably be put off by trying to catch up to friends who are level 85. The community is much the same as it’s always been, maybe a little quieter now and there are less people around but the ones who are around love the game. They’re passionate about things, and they’re friendly and helpful. Out of all the games I’ve played EQ has one of the best communities I’ve ever seen. Vanguard is another with an outstanding community, but you really have to look for it first. 

The basics of the game are all the same and it’s comforting. There’s no one way to do an encounter. Monk pulls are still used (and are still amazing), kiting is still done (unless the mobs summon, ew!) and questing still involves figuring out the proper text to say to an NPC. There are still LOTS of options of what to do in game, especially once you start working on aa. If you get into crafting at all then your options are multiplied. Trains are still trains, and they still hurt (and they are fun!) and the very basic components of the game that make it fun are all still there and intact. The fact that things in the game are ‘bigger’ then you and there’s NO guarantee that you’re going to win, is a feeling that I love. Whether you’re taking down an even con mob or battling a great deity, things feel bigger then you. There’s a moment in the fight where you think to yourself (from time to time) “oh crud, I am not going to beat this!” and then it rips you apart. On the same note, there’s the satisfaction of taking down an encounter and then it becoming easier each and every time, and then a sense of triumph as you defeat it without breaking out in a sweat. It’s got that feeling of ‘conquiring’ that a lot of games miss. I don’t want to be able to defeat everything in the game easily, group or raid or solo. It should feel like a challenge (but also leave enough encounters around that I CAN defeat, so I don’t feel overwhelmed). This feeling is one I get every day as I play EQ. In EQ2, not so much. I felt like I could defeat pretty much anything depending on who I had with me. There was very little in the game that couldn’t be beaten, unless it was a high end raid zone (and I’m not a raider these days). 

If it sounds like I’m being a poster girl for SOE and their games, well guess what, I am. I enjoy the games, I wouldn’t be writing about them and I wouldn’t have played them for the last 7 years if I didn’t. I feel passionate about them, and I love the experiences I’ve had in them. There’s no shame in that (at least not for me). Does it mean I ignore the flaws or faults in the games? No, of course not. No game is perfect and it’s bound to happen. Bugs are there, down times occur, rollbacks hurt and all the rest. I’d rather spend my time talking about the good points of a game and share my passion for it then rip it apart and do nothing but complain – unless I really don’t enjoy a game (and trust me, it has happened) for whatever reason. What a fantastic time where we have so many choices of things to play, and so many great people in each of the games. I feel lucky to have found games that match my play style (or did I match my play style to their games?) and I hope everyone else out there finds ‘their’ game too. 

Shew, sorry for the rambling, but I guess you can expect that on my blog from time to time!

Safe travels, see you in Norrath!

Yesterday was my first foray into the Prophecy of Ro expansion, even though it’s been out since 2006. Well, it was my first ‘real’ adventure in it, I do have a few of the evolving crafting trophies that were released at that time in place of the old tokens that players used to wear. The story to the expansion is wonderful, here’s what zam had to say about it:

Mayong Mistmoore’s release into godhood has turned the gods’ focus back to the mortal realm. Druzzil Ro foresaw the devastation of the world and in turn beckoned all mortals to her Plane of Magic, a plane ruled by her creations, the scrykin. 

The scrykin have a problem, though. As they age, they succumb to madness, paranoia, and instability — something which led the first born scrykin, Daosheen, to lock himself in the tower of Skylance. As the elder scrykin continued to deteriorate mentally, the dragons of Relic assumed more political power. They, however, are at odds one another as they each want control of the magical channeling platforms built within the city. And so it is the second born scrykin, Porthio, who has assumed the role as governor of Relic while at the same time remaining focused on his studies. 

In addition to the Plane of Magic portal, another passage appeared in Freeport, one which leads to the home of Sullon Zek — the Plane of Rage. It is said that when one mortal kills another in a fit of rage, the killer is sent here when they die. The Seething Wall which lines the plane covers the killer in an all-consuming darkness. They feel cold, leathery flesh, and the pinch and scrape of armor against their bodies, crushing them from every direction. With the stench of death in the cold air and the calling of Sullon Zek’s rage, they soon feel an urgent need to destroy and vent their unrelenting rage, as well as a desire to fight for Sullon Zek and earn her respect. Sullon Zek remains in the tower of Razorthorn within her plane’s stronghold, alongside those who are most dedicated to increasing their rage and learning how to focus it. 

Another magical passage formed in the Desert of Ro. Druzzil Ro wasn’t the only god to take action after Mayong Mistmoore was released into godhood. Tunare, too, saw the need to beckon mortals to her realm. Using rains from Karana and magic from Druzzil Ro, a sandstorm was created in the desert, revealing the ruins of the Elddar city Takish-Hiz. Also created was a portal into the past and the glory of the Elddar Forest and great elven city as it stood in the Age of Monuments, before Solusek Ro created the Serpent’s Spine Mountains and turned the forest into a desert. 

There is one god who has already fallen to the corruption of Mayong Mistmoore. She is Ayonae Ro, the ruler of the once-beautiful Plane of Music, a place which has turned into a dark, bloody cesspool of terror and rage while Ayonae remains holed up in the plane’s tower of Deathknell. 

The very power of mortals that the gods despised for unleashing Mayong Mistmoore into godhood is being called upon to save them and the world.

You can read more about the expansion over here on the zam site, and don’t cringe too hard as you read Mayong Mistmoore is one of the leads to yet another story. In both EQ and EQ2 he seems to be a very popular character. My dynamic trio was down to a duo as one friend deals with life for the next little while, so we were down one person. To start the day Ninga asked what gear I was wearing for jewelery and I sheepishly lined my level 40 items that I’d been sporting since early last week. He ran us through some Depths of Darkhollow missions and upgraded a whole lot of items on both my enchanter and my necromancer. Both of them managed to get a few aa as well – then he suggested we head to Arcstone, and work on an evolving cloak. 

I have to admit, I have a special fondness for evolving items in EQ. Yes, I realize they are a PAIN to level and take huge amounts of time and effort. Before I started playing EQ I played a MUD called Redemption. It was based here in Ottawa, and had a pretty good following of players. I met a lot of amazing people at ‘mud meets’ – I even coded for them and created a zone based around “Gulliver’s Travels”, as well as an old broken down gnome amusement park. Anyhow, there were evolving weapons added to this mud over time. You’d wear them and they’d develop as you slaughtered creatures (or players) and it was just something I really enjoyed. I loved that weapons could have a ‘mind’ of their own and change. So the fact that evolving items are in EQ really makes me feel nostalgic about the mud. 

The quest was fairly simple, though I can see how it would have been quite difficult in 2006. You have to go around killing 5 named, each of which represent an element, and each does unique attacks during their encounter. For example, wind came with four adds that you had to defeat first before you could damage the gigantic creature (or you could spend an hour trying to whittle him down), fire re-spawned a number of times and did a few AoE, Earth had an AoE root and so on. The battles were great, and even the base cloak was an upgrade for me. 

Today my parents come back from their cruise (much later) and I’m taking my baby brother out for Pho for lunch, it should be a nice day. Even with the snow (yes, lots of snow still falling here, ah well). Safe travels and I hope everyone is having an incredible weekend!

I saw the sweetest thing last night in EQ and I had to mention it here of course. In both EQ and EQ2 you’re able to edit a small box of text on your description window. People use these for numerous things, favorite song lyrics, a list of their accomplishments and other random goodies, whatever really happens to cross your mind. When you examine someone these boxes of text are on display for all the world to see. 

So it was that I happened to be standing in the guild lobby last night, and I spotted a character with a very interesting looking shield. Naturally I wanted to see what shield it was, so I examined them. 

I wish I had of taken a screen shot. It was just that sweet. 

In their description was a letter from a husband, written to his wife on his wife’s character. He must have logged her in with the hopes that she would see the message. It was written just before he left for Iraq, or so the brief message said. It was a note about how much he loved his darling wife, and went along the lines of “Hey baby, I love you so much you’re incredible, I’ll see you when I get back from Iraq” – short, and sweet. 

The message moved me so much. I almost teared up, reading some strangers description. I don’t even know who they were and they zoned before I could get their name or send them a tell about the message to ask if it was new or how long ago he had left or if he had returned safely. I probably won’t ever know now, unless by some weird fluke they happen to read this site which would be really weird. The emotional connections we all make as human beings within these video games we play astounds me every single day. It reminds me of the great people I have met, the close friends, and everyone I love. Anyone else have amazing stories like this? I’d love to hear them.

Aside from the defeat of Bristlebane, last night was filled with a few other adventures that warrent talking about. To start it off my little necromancer is not quite so little any more. Through the aid of hot zones and some amazing help from both Ultann and Ninga, she’s reached level 68, and 70% into it. She doesn’t have any veteran rewards, no experience item she can use every 24h or anything like that, it’s just been from regular leveling. If I had of concentrated on her the first few days I was playing instead of the rogue she would have probably gained a few more levels by now as well. 

Ninga suggested a mission last night (and I’m still new at those) which we did with a few complications (mercs are still not as good at healing as a real person no matter what) and the reward was that glowing staff pictured in the screen shot. This is my first item that I’ve ever owned with a very noticeable particle effect. Needless to say I absolutely love it and I’ll be taking it to bed with me for the next little while. Minxes is completely set with her glowing staff in one hand, and her little doll in the other. 

The particle effect staff was not the main component of the evening though, nor even the most exciting. Nope, it wasn’t Bristlebane either.

The boys suggested that I work on my epic 1.5 pre-quest, and then we start plugging away at my epic 1.5 in truth. I sort of stood there dumbfounded for a minute or two, and asked “are you guys serious”? before letting myself get too excited. I’ve owned 1.0′s on characters before, both my cleric and my rogue (and part of the one for my enchanter) but I’ve never done a 1.5 before. Sure, it’s out dated but the feelings I associate with those weapons are very significant. 

Just so happens that the necromancer one is not that difficult (now), and does not require the loads of crafting that some of the others require. I have one no-fail combine that needs a blacksmithing skill of over 100, but aside from that it’s all fairly simple. So we headed off to start the pre-quest which was not too difficult. I had to make my way to West Karana (the zone, not the site) and then give a note to an NPC there – doing so triggered five wolves to spawn. Four of them were level 68, immune to melee (sorry our handy monk) summon, and hit for about 1200 a shot. The other one was 69 and highly magic resistant. When I first triggered everything we were not really sure what to do and so the wolves summoned and ate through my little group pretty fast. We also didn’t take along our healer, Nocbot. Woops. Once the mobs are triggered you only have 30 minutes to defeat everything including the next step, so we set up for round two, used monk mez and pulled the wolves one at a time away from each other. 

It went much smoother that way. 

After they were defeated I had to kill a shady bandit who was standing a little ways away, and then there were a few more fights, nothing of note though. Before long I had my pre-quest completed and I was free to start on the actual epic. Looking over the notes, there is only one encounter (at the end of course) that may be any trouble at all, and it’s in Nobels Causeway. My group is fairly confident that with a little finess we may be able to defeat this just fine – and I was so excited at hearing that, and at hearing in general that I may get my 1.5. I think I mentioned that once or twice already, hehe. 

We continued on with the main portion of the quest which requires obtaining random bits and combining them into containers and then turning in those containers to obtain more bits. Ultann headed off to farm some balls of clay while myself and Ninga headed to the mines for a few ore. Afterwards Ultann hunted gargoyls for me for a tradeable bit, and now I need to hunt in Plane of Innovation for a rare drop. After that, it’s a matter of defeating four paladins, and then there’s two more encounters and my 1.5 will be completed. My fingers are crossed for this one, I’d really like to get it done!

My goal for today is to work up my blacksmithing to 100 so that I can get that out of the way. I’m having an absolute blast in game these last few days have been so much fun. I hope everyone else is having an amazing day, no matter where or what you’re playing!

Now, Bristlebane isn’t part of PoP at all (Planes of Power for those who may have forgotten or never played) but he was still on the list of “would like to kill one day” encounters that we all made mentally. I’ve never killed him before, in fact I’d never even seen him before let alone kill him.

So when Ninga and Ultann decided last night that we’d be going to check on him I was so excited. It’s no surprise that I’m a big fan of Plane of Mischief, it’s my favorite zone by far. When I first started playing EQ I spent hours upon hours in this zone with my beastlord friend farming gear that was (at the time) huge upgrades for me. It was so much fun. Probably the main reason I have such fond memories. 

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the encounter, there was a discussion about how every server had a different version of the playful King of Thieves, but when I looked it up on Zam there was only talk of one main encounter so perhaps things have changed over the years. It was a pretty basic fight. Throughout the duration Bristlebane does an emote (or two) and switches his stances out between being highly magic resistant and fighting faster, increasing his strength and other such things. 

My necromancer (who is now level 68 after five days of playing which I’ll talk more about later) was almost instantly turned into a halfling – and not just any halfling, a BALD halfling. Those ones are the worst kind after all. I noticed the rest of the group mates seemed to resist this AoE and I felt a little foolish as I hurled spells at Bristlebane’s ankles. 

In the end we were victorious, and the fight dropped a few pretties. What I was hoping for was the clicky shrink item, but apparently that’s rare and we sure didn’t see it. That’s ok though, what we did get was still pretty nice. I relogged over to Invis (the rogue) in order to loot a new dagger.

The dagger (even though VERY old) was still an upgrade to my off hand. Sure, I could purchase a better one from the broker but what would be the fun in that? Where was the challenge. 

We also received a bracer, nothing too facny about it – but along with that bracer was a robe. A pretty robe. It went to Minxes (the necromancer) who has been wearing her tutorial gear for quite some time now, and who we’ve just started obtaining gear for. The robe has a beautiful graphic on the Drakkin and it’s black with purples and pink highlights. 

Which reminds me, some time I need to take my little necromancer to speak with the npc in PoK about her planar progression stone – though it’s also highly outdated, and I realize Bristlebane has nothing to do with it, it’s just one of those things I need to get around to some time that I have not done yet. Hopefully the guys had just as much fun as I did, even though none of the items we loot are upgrades at all to their uberness. We keep checking on a particular mob every day to see if they are up yet and get a chance to kill them (not telling which, it’s a secret!) but so far, no luck. Not sure when they died last, either. 

The boys did get a chance to check in on Cazic Thul and kill him, which I was surprised at, figuring that he would be heavily camped. It won’t be long until the PoP mobs we’ve already killed can be taken down again and now that my necromancer has a few more levels under her belt we can get her some more old flags that are no longer used. 

Another post will follow this one in a bit, talking about what we spent the rest of the evening doing (which was a lot of fun and pretty exciting for me personally, I must say). See you in Norrath!

When LDoN (Lost Dungeons of Norrath) came out I thought it was the greatest thing ever. This was back in September of 2003. I loved the way people grouped up to do them, and their difficulty. While I was never as amazing as some people at them they were still a lot of fun for me. I remember trying to coerce people into doing certain ones so I could save up my points to get very specific spells. Healers would hog the ones they needed so they could get theirs. Healers pretty much controlled the groups since you couldn’t do anything without one. The ones in North Ro I typically avoided because the creatures would mez and charm a whole lot, and it hurt. The Butcherblock vampire ones were the easiest, and the ones I had the most experience doing. Even when Nostalgia started up last April we did LDoN a few times and wave after wave of memories washed over me. 

I never knew there were LDoN raids.

Apparently, they were not that popular. I’m not exactly sure why. The zone would consist of no more then 54 people and as I wandered through last night I wondered how they even fit. Tipa explained to me that raids would typically split their force in order to clear the zone in time. When these dungeons were new, the level cap was 65. Now it’s 85 and as we made our way through I still thought to myself “wow, this is just so neat”. I talk to people all the time about how in EQ2 nothing really seems “bigger” then the players. For me personally, nothing gives me that “wow, maybe we can’t beat this” feeling. Especially with raids being so small. Amasing such a huge amount of people to take down a god actually felt like we were taking down a GOD in EQ. It’s been a feeling I’ve missed a great deal. 

So it was that me and my two partners in crime found ourselves facing Geomancer Paara. The group consisted of 80 Magician, 79 (grats on the ding!) Monk, a boxed 79 cleric, and myself as a 72 rogue. 

It took a while to burn through all of the trash, and take care of the ‘fake’ named in the zone, all of the guards that protected the area, but we did it and it wasn’t bad experience. The encounters were anywhere from light blue to dark blue to me – aside from two named and then the final named which were yellow and then RED to me. The final boss of the zone was an even con to a level 80. This was going to be FUN!

Well, we didn’t manage to beat the final encounter. We did pretty dang well though for something that is supposed to require 54 people and still con’d so high to us. The named has a few nasty dots that go off, a blind being one, as well as spawning adds that decided to eat the healer (and me) and then as the monk and magician duo’d everything for a while it slowly went downhill. We gave the encounter two great attempts before the timer triggered telling us we’d only have five minutes to finish up. A lot of +7 augments dropped, and some crafting trash as well as other odds and ends, I really had a great time even in this older content. Afterwards my friends were talking about trio’ing some of the old PoP gods, and I just sort of stared at them and said “we can do that?!” – back when I did PoP those raids were so intimidating to me and they were my first raids ever in any game. Needless to say, I hold them in pretty high regard. It’s great to be playing again.