If you happen to be a housing buff (or even a quest-o-holic) then there is no doubt that you had heard about the 5 new grotto that (as of yesterday) appear in Norrath the 20th of every month for players to explore and quest in. If for some reason you were unable to partake in the event this month – don’t worry, there will be another one next month, same date. When I started working on these quests I had so many questions shot my way about it that I put all of the information I knew into a player-written book, made 10 copies of it, and sold it on the broker for others who did not want to spend the time to look it up. Surprisingly enough, I sold out. Of course I also advertised the books on the channels too.

The grotto appear in Antonica, Darklight Woods, Greater Faydark, Enchanted Lands, and Nektulos Forest. Each zone has a collection quest associated with it, as well as one regular quest (aside from Darklight Woods, which has two). Each zone has a merchant with 10-15 house items for sale that use the tokens you receive from completing the quests. If you do not collect the purple shiny in the zone, you will only have a 39 minute lock out and you can go back in and complete the zone again for another house item. I am not certain if this is intended. The 2 day 12 hour lock out only sets once you have collected the purple shiny.

I have never seen so many house items at once before that I wanted to have. They were absolutely beautiful. I ran through the quest on three of my characters for this month and decided that would be more then enough for me. I love the work that must have went into an event such as this, and the giggles of pleasure from watching everyone and their new house items. There were sea shells, coral, flowers, vines, trees, grass, illusions, 20 charges of temporary mounts (that lasted a day each, fantastic for those lowbie alts since the quests scaled and were quite simple). There were plushies of every shape and size, and all of it for a very limited time only, until next month. What a fantastic idea.

I don’t think people understand the scale of the content that gets added to EQ2 every single month (or two). We have huge massive updates on a steady basis that give players not only basic bug fixes and updates to things like graphics but incredible zones, house items, gear, and even the more unique like player-written books. I think a lot of us take advantage of the fact that we expect these updates to happen – but they should NOT be expected. We pay our monthly fee and while there are those who may say the developers of the game are obligated due to the fact that this is to keep subscriptions, it’s simply not true. This content is something that is extra, and done amazingly well in EverQuest II.

On that same note, there is also the guide program in EQ, EQ2, VG, and the EQ that’s on the mac (the name escapes me right now). How many other games have a guide program, where a group of volunteers are set to interact with the player base on a daily time frame, giving away goodies, providing role play opportunities, and other games that can reward players. The time and effort that goes into these games is astounding and every once in a while we all need to sit back and appreciate that effort. I know, I know, we pay $15/m and that’s a lot of money and we should be getting everything for free and how dare anything break in the game without us the players the game would be nothing. I’ve heard it all before. I even agree with certain aspects. That doesn’t mean we can’t be thankful and appreciate what we’re getting as a player base. I hear often on 70-79 players ranting about how no one listens to them, and about how they feel ‘screwed over’. I think this opinion is slightly misguided, while individual players may feel as though no one listens to their specific set of unique problems, over all, things are not that bad.

Sorry, I got carried away there and started ranting. You certainly don’t have to agree with me, but if I’ve learned anything over the past five years it’s to be thankful, both in game and out.

The grotto quests are amazing. So amazing that I spent my time in game yesterday doing nothing but that, and decorating the museum I posted about yesterday. It was one of those nice calm relaxing days that are typically so rare. I ended up crawling into bed with a book at 9:30, and watched ‘Pretty Woman’ until I fell asleep. I couldn’t have thought of a more perfect way to spend my Saturday if I tried (except maybe down in San Diego, I’m so jealous of all of you who are headed to Fan Faire)!

Have a fantastic Father’s Day, everyone. I’ll see you in Norrath (and Telon)!

I’ve been working on my ‘Norrathian Museum‘ off and on for quite some time. The screen shots don’t do it justice, so if you’re on the kithicor server please feel free to stop by the Magical Academy Housing in North Freeport. Character name is Ellithia. It’s in the mage tower, bottom floor. I’ve worked really hard on this and I’m exceptionally pleased with how it’s turning out.

Ideally, the library will be filled with a combination of player-written books and ones that I’ve quested for. It’s a little bare right now, but it gives me a goal. If there is anyone who wants to add some of their writing to my library, please don’t hesitate to make a character on Kithicor and mail me with your name, I’ll send you a notebook and some coin in return, then all you need to do is mail it back to me when the story is complete, you can delete the character right after.

It is still a work in progress, but the main floor is completed now, and the majority of the upper floor. I want to add tables and chairs to the library area, as well as a living space downstairs for Ellithia (the owner of the home, my mystic). She has a little bedroom tucked away, didn’t need much space for that, but I’d like a little kitchen, and perhaps a bath, we’ll see.

The garden picture was taken at night so it’s really hard to see, and looks far better in the day light. With the new grotto quest rewards (which I’ll go into more detail about tomorrow) the outdoors in any home will lack for nothing.

A silly way to spend my time? Maybe, but I had an absolute blast decorating.

When player-written books first came out, I had grand hopes of putting together a library in my Norrathian Museum (a work in progress) that was filled with player-created books instead of the usual ones that everyone finds (aside from a few select volumes). The books have only been out a few days now, but so far only one other person aside from my guild mates has placed any books for sale on the Kithicor server. Whether this is because people are just shy with sharing their work, or it is because they’re saving it all up for some big boom, I’ve no idea. There are 17 pages of blank books for sale, and 2 written books, both from my guild mates (one pictured above).

Now take a look on the Antonia Bayle server – which I realize also happens to be the most popular server, but it’s got pages and pages of user created books for sale. I would LOVE to be able to fill my library with these books, so if anyone is interested in creating a character on Kithicor and penning a book for me to add to my library, I will pay for the blank notebook.

I would also (no idea if this is feasible, it’s probably not) LOVE to have some unique one of a kind books penned by our resident community team members (I’m looking at you Kiara!) to add to this library. People of note from the game, friends, anyone I can possibly find to add to this library. It’s more or less for sentimental value to me, but I would really appreciate it. If you happen to pen a book, or want to pen a book for me to use in the library, you can find me in game as Ellithia or Arysh – and if you don’t currently see me on, send me some mail and I’ll send you a blank book in return that you can mail back to me. You don’t have to actually level the character, and you’re welcome to delete afterward, but I would really love a user generated library with unique stories.

Last night we attempted Mistmyr Manor for the first time (the first time all together, that is, and the first time over all for me) but Ultann was feeling ill so just before we hit the library we had to call it a night. I picked up a nice cloak for Goudia (she was needing one badly) and a piece (or two) of vampire bane gear for the coercer. Even though the stats are not that great I do love being able to proc against them. Especially since I always put the mystic buff that increases proc chance on my coercer. The joys of boxing!

This weekend should be fairly quiet. I’m crafting a lot of the new hex dolls and bandoliers in order to be able to make some future purchases. I haven’t any masters for sale and I pretty much transmute everything else I get, so this should help out a little bit. Of course, not creating so many alts would also help out. Ah well!

Time to see if the Grotto event is in game yet! Safe travels, and see you in Norrath!

That’s right, I happen to be one of THOSE gamers. I’m not a huge fan of blood and guts, shooting and killing. While there have been some comments in the past that say this is because I’m (gasp) a female gamer, I prefer to think it’s because I’m just not into those sorts of things. I don’t believe that they’re the sort of game that appeals only to men or only to women. I enjoy pvp (though I rarely delve into it these days) and I’d rather do something I personally find more creative and constructive with my time then just grind it away battling creatures. I typically do this via: crafting, decorating, and other creative outlets, especially those involving design. I can’t exactly be too creative when I’m doing nothing but smacking mobs – though that is a wonderful pass time too, it’s just not the end all be all of my gaming persona. Anyhow!

I’ve been a long time sim fan. I played sim city, and all of the regular sims growing up. I loved building homes, creating lives. I loved designing my own clothing, creating textures and building elaborate yards – or even simple ones. When Sims 2 came out it was amazing, but I barely got a chance to play it because my youngest brother ‘borrowed’ the cd and that was the last I ever saw of it. I even spent some time playing The Sims Online when that came out, I used to DJ on a radio station going by the name “April Love” – four hours every day. It was a great experience even if the game wasn’t all it could have been. I played just before I started with EQ, and just after I had gotten more then my fill of MUDS. I used to take requests and played a lot of songs for people while they wandered around the Sim world.

Sims 3 is beautiful. They’ve made some changes and so far I’ve had a very enjoyable experience. I started out with a fully furnished home (my choice) for $15,000 or so. You start out with $16,000 so you don’t get a lot left over. Character creation was great, I loved the fact that I didn’t have to be some super skinny woman if I didn’t want to. Ages start as young as babies and go up to elderly. You pick five traits that can be negative or positive and as far as simple creativity goes, I adore it.

Sure, I’m just playing a virtual life, and I’ve already got a real life (hah) so you may wonder why this would even be appealing, but it’s great to pretend, and fantastic to invent and create.

One addition to Sims 3 is the RMT factor, they have an online store where you can purchase more styles of hair, clothing, furniture and other goodies. I checked out the furniture. It reminds me of SOE’s station cash, where it’s $20 for a full house set, and cheaper for bits and pieces. For pre-ordering the game on direct2drive I snagged $10 (1,000) worth of points to put towards future purchases – if I want. I didn’t see anything that interested me quite yet, but we’ll see. My only issue with this is the same issue I have in EQ2, that there’s less of a push to release really awesome looking content for free because you can just charge for all of the neat looking things. Aside from that one small little blip, I’m having a great time taking a break from Norrath and Telon (and whatever other virtual worlds I happen to wander through this week) to spend some quiet time playing the game. So far I’ve enjoyed the little quests they’ve sent me on. My sim (named Stargrace, go figure) is a young adult, working her way for $28/h as a podium polisher, mon-fri 9-3. The first weekend that came around she took some writing and art classes, and cooked some fantastic hot dogs for some fine gentleman that she may (or may not) have her eyes on. The life of a sim is less complicated then real life and I think that’s part of the charm – plus if I remove all the doors to the house in a moment of pure frustration it’s fun to see what happens next. Not, that I would do that. *grins*

Still just taking it easy while I try to recuperate, yesterday was ok until after dinner. In the mean time all I want to do is feel better and it’s been a pretty long week. Hopefully that will happen before too long.

I did play a little EQ2 in the afternoon, I started my thuuga quest on both the mystic and the illusionist. Got as far as the Fens of Nathsar quest that sends you out looking for named before I called it.

You may have also noticed that I have added a small 2 line advertisement to the “relic gems” page of this site at the top. It’s not flashy or too intrusive (I hope) and the ad pays for 6 years of this site. If for s0me reason you do find it intrusive and annoying, let me know and I’ll see what I can do. I’ve never wanted to have google ads or anything of the sort on MmoQuests, and I’ve declined more then my fair share of requests in the past. This one was different in the way it was presented to me as more of a ‘sponsorship’ then a full blown ad. I don’t want people to feel as though I’ll be covering the site with ads now, or that it is something common for me. I’ve enjoyed running my site ad-free for the last four years, but of course there is a cost (and bills) to be paid. This is just a tiny method for me to be able to continue. Edit: That ad is only staying up for 6 months, as well.

Moving on!

I did explore around more of Wizard 101 last night, my little life / storm wizard inched her way to level 19 and part way to 20. I managed to earn a few more house items (pictured above) including a palm tree and a scroll that I placed on my desk.

One thing I love about wizard 101 is their subscription plan. I don’t get a chance to play that often so I declined getting the $10/m subscription. What I can do is purchase crowns and then use those to unlock the zones for my account that I need, when I need them. Since it could potentially be months before I need a new zone this works out better for me personally in the long run. If you do end up spending a lot of time in Wizard 101, then I can certainly see how adding a subscription is a better idea, especially if you go with their family plan and you play with your children or even if you just want to have two accounts.

I’m still saving up for my first house, drooling over all of the items out there both merchant sold and dropped. I’ve been having fun adding to my collection and I don’t have the slightest idea what sort of home I want to own. Since I only have two worlds open to me right now (and I’m not even sure where the housing turtles are) my choices are limited. I may just hang tight until I can buy one of the REALLY big homes, or just buy a smaller one. I’m still trying to decide.

This weekend is one I’ll be spending inside (sighs) again. I hope everyone has a great Mother’s Day tomorrow – and before I forget if you’re playing Free Realms and are interested in cool items you can claim then don’t forget to take a peek over at Free Realms Insider who have all sorts of awesome codes that you can enter for free goodies. This weekend they’ll be giving away codes for roses in celebration of Mother’s Day, and there are all sorts of other neat items that you can claim.