Up early yesterday for a family get together and then spent most of the afternoon napping (I wasn’t feeling too well) so when I finally got up around 7pm I wasn’t really expecting to do too much before heading back to bed for the night. Turns out, I was wrong. 

My ‘usual’ group was around, Kasul, Albrta, Eyenstein, and Shadowgeist, so we decided to do some instances. The daily double was Najena’s Hollow Tower, and none of us felt like doing it. So instead we headed to Scion of Ice in Everfrost. Before doing Scion I had done a quick maidens run in Jarsath Waste, first time running Petites (templar) through there so the experience was fairly good. Finished off the weapon quest from the zone too. Anyhow, Scion of ice hurt. Plus our second shadowknight was apparently fairly drunk and left unable to continue part way through the instance. I was the only healer, and everyone seemed to be getting pummeled by AoE’s and my templar (yet) is not exactly geared up for solo healing. But we managed it, cleared the zone. I picked myself up a new healer cloak, as well as a new ring. 

I was a little reluctant to solo heal, but some times you don’t always get the perfect group. After we finished with Scion we headed to Crucible which has always been the easiest of the Everfrost instances, for me at least. We picked up a swashbuckler who was LFG - and for the first time ever I had to ask someone not to use a particular piece of gear. Not because of them, but because of me. 

I was still 79 at the time, solo healing, without very good gear (my own fault I know, but what was the point of upgrading everything when I was wearing the EoF set gear and I’d just be wearing void shard gear before too long) my spells were all adept3 but I didn’t have any illusionist with TC or any of that stuff. Anyhow, the item in question is the Bloodthirsty Choker. If you’ve never heard of this item before it’s the one that quickly drains your health as you dps to boost your attacks with a proc. It drains about 10% health (at least on the swashbuckler) every tick or two. 

Being the only healer, I didn’t feel as though I could effectively keep my heals concentrated on both the tank, and this swashbuckler in group without letting someone die. If I were on my warden, I’d have no issue at all with this. Afterwards, I did learn a few tricks in regards to the bloodthirsty choker. For example, apparently shield of faith which is a magic ward / buff will work on the choker. Apparently so will a few other things, like shield ally. 

Was it unfair of me to ask them to remove the piece? Well, I’m not sure. It really did make me feel like a crappy healer, but I know my limitations, and I wasn’t about to risk heals because someone wanted to boost their dps. Not to speak down about them, but pet peeve of mine is someone posting the dps parse every fight into group chat. It’s fine to want to know your dps, but posting (and they’d only post the ones where they were on top) like that just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe even more so because I play a healer and I’m always at the bottom of that list, with big fat 0’s by my name. 

The fabled healer / mage item from Crucible dropped and Petites won it, all in all it was a very nice day for the templar. That also makes my 5th level 80 character which means my account has a 50/50 bonus for both tradeskilling and adventuring (which is the cap). I started the templar epic, which has been fairly smooth so far. Lots of running around, which seems to be the case for every epic. 

Next? Not sure. I’d like to work a pure DPS class up to 80 simply because I don’t have one. I have two healers, and 3 utility (two enchanters and a bard) and then of course there’s the paladin tank I have at 70. Still on burn out from that one though. So what do I have left? Well, there’s the 61 bruiser, the 61 necromancer (who I’ve had since 2004 and just never leveled), I have the 58 swashbuckler, the 70 paladin, and a 30 warlock, as well as the 74 defiler. It may sound like a lot, but keep in mind the experience from 1-70 was drastically increased, there’s mentor bonus, and there’s experience potions, AND there’s the account bonus I have. It really takes no time at all these days to level up a character in EQ2 and honestly as long as I’m having fun that’s all that matters. 

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend, and had some great holidays no matter where you game!

I’m not exactly a big fan of crowds or large noisy parties, so last night saw me in EQ2 for new years eve talking with online friends as I drank some sparkling wine (which was really good, the empty bottle attests to that) and today I’ll be doing the family thing and finish up putting together a plate of appetizers before I head out. Even under the influence of a little wine I still had good fun, and managed to do a few instances. 

Petites headed to Deep forge to complete the daily double and I was really pleased to learn that I can obtain the shard quests at level 79. I thought they started at level 80. So now she has four shards in her bags waiting for her first piece of TSO gear. I’d never been to the deep forge and the group blew through it with no issues at all. It was a Shadowknight, Dirge, Troubador, Wizard, some scout DPS that I forget at the moment (I want to say Swashbuckler or Assassin) and myself as Templar. 20% experience later, we headed to the Obelisk that you find in the Moors. I needed it for my signature quest anyhow, and the chest within that zone drops a few plat for everyone in the group. Plus it was quick and easy even if there are no shard rewards unless it’s a daily double location.

After that we headed to Commonlands to help the coercer out with a quest update for the book of Thex heritage quest. You have to zone into an instance and defeat a named who spawns adds - without killing a single add. There are a lot of them, too. Apparently it was supposed to be difficult, but we had no issues. The coercer rooted the adds that spawned far away, and mez’d the ones who spawned close by. We had a lot of dps and that helped take down the encounter. 

Earlier in the day I completed a tradeskill instance on my tailor with Kasul from guild, his carpenter hit 61 I believe. My tailor managed to slug her way to 67, three more levels and it’ll be back to writ grinding for me. I also logged in the alchemist late last night before bed and inched her to 66 and part way through. Made a few adornments to put on the broker, I’ve been holding onto the shards and dusts for a long time now stock piling. 

All in all the evening was spent exactly as I had hoped. I wish everyone a Happy New Year, and may it be as wonderful as the previous.

Yesterday Nostalgia hit level 35! I’m so exceptionally proud of Ecor and Kasul who have been working really hard to get us those levels. It was an important milestone, though it may not seem like it. First, it’s one step closer to 40, which brings us extra bank space, and it also allowed us to purchase two more guildhall amenities! They were expensive, but worth it. I’ve donated close to 300p towards the hall, and millions of status. Of course once we hit level 35 it was time to decide what we wanted our two amenity to be!

There’s the harvesting depot that the guild could really make use of, as a central location for craft supplies, as well as the hirelings that will go out and harvest for you. That was pretty high up on my list of things to purchase, but I think we’ll try to get some of that around level 40. So instead, we purchased (finally) a broker, and a hireling who we can sell looted items to - including all of those status items we gain from mobs. That means no more running around everywhere trying to find the proper merchant to sell to (or in my case, no need to head to Maj’Dul to use the faction instances to sell to since the merchants there also accept everything). 

Our total amenities include: Druid porter (since we can’t afford to purchase all of those bells, the druid porters are great to get around Norrath), banker, broker, rush order writs, fuel merchant, and junk buying merchant. Since we are so small, and such a low level, we really had to be careful about where to spend the two extra items. They each cost 10p and 1,000,000 status. Kasul and I donated some more plat towards the escrow, and we still have 13 million status in there, so that should do for a while more. 

Eyenstein and Albrta asked if Shadowgeist, Kasul and I wanted to do a few of the vampire instances in Nektulos forest for some aa. Of course we agreed, and it was a lot of fun, I gained 1.5aa with Arysh, and I also had the quest to receive vampire smite on me, I finally completed the chain of quests from the encampment by the waterfalls. I’ve only had that quest on me forever. 

Kasul was also gracious enough to let Shadowgeist and I into his empty Crucible instance and The Deep Forge so that we could get the void shard updates (clickies) and earn some shards. Since Crucible was the daily double, we managed to get five shards without having to actually do the instances. I’m saving up to upgrade the shoes, gloves, and shoulders I have - which means I’ll be saving for a while, I need about 60 shards. Ugh. 

Since I’ve decided (for now) to settle on Arysh as far as ‘mains’ go, things have been going really well. It’s easy for me to log her in and decide what I need to do. This week hopefully I’ll be getting both my tailor and alchemist to level 70, which means then it’s just a hop skip and jump with writs to level 80. 

Hope everyone has an amazing weekend, I’m happy that the holidays are winding down a little bit.

Logged in to EQ2 yesterday and the MoTD mentioned something about all the dervishes losing their loot and the instance Hidden Cache being closed. I believe this has to do with the increased master drop rate - and not the fact that the drop rate was increased, because Scornfeather’s roost was not changed, not were any overland zones that are ‘contested’ but because of the way that this zone could be abused. Hidden Cache is filled with encounters, and unless you get a named you can kill those encounters (which were dropping an abundance of master chests) zone out, reset the zone, and head back in. Rinse and repeat. As long as you didn’t accidentally kill a named, you never set the lock out timer. I figured it was just easier to go to living tombs and kill to get masters, but apparently a lot of people were using this method. So for now the instance is out of commission. Since I got the rare masters that I wanted (a lucky drop saw me with Enraging Demeanor on Wednesday) I didn’t head back to LT to see if it was now heavily populated with people farming. I know the increase drop rate was intended, but I guess this specific zone was not meant to be used that way. If the drop rate was not meant to be increased, then I assume the other zones that are dropping masters like crazy (silent city, living tombs, scornfeathers roost, etc) would have also been changed. 

Anyhow. Since yesterday was Christmas I decided to splurge and purchase three masters for my warden. I always told myself that I would settle on a main first before investing too much money into a character, but I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll never really settle. I enjoy the warden in every aspect on so many levels except the fact that they’re a popular healer, so it makes my chances of actually getting some where with them marginally small. Maybe I’ll get lucky. 

Shadowgeist rounded up a few guild mates and I asked Kasul if he wanted to come do the daily double, which was Anathema, a zone I had only been to as a lower level character and not on Arysh. Seems the daily double quests alternate their rewards, and yesterday was 1p and 2 shards as a reward. That brought my shard count up to 15, which was a lot for me. I had a few choices. I could either upgrade my gloves to the greater version, or purchase a few more lesser pieces, and get the three set bonus. In the end that’s exactly what I did. The pieces themselves were not exactly upgrades stat wise, they all have less power on them, but wearing them reduces the recast of my spells by 5%, and gives my heals a boost by 3% (which also counts for overloaded heals) and increases my crit chance a huge amount (crits trigger my epic weapon). In the end I am at 9,400 power (self buffed with no food and drink) 8,500 hp (I’ll be getting stamina adornments) 8-10,000 in every resist, and sitting at 1022 wisdom. 

For a non-raid geared person, I don’t think that’s too bad. I’m just touching 50% heal crit chance, which I know is still a little low, but I’ll get there eventually. I bought the shoulders, gloves, and shoes for the set bonuses. Now it’s just a matter of saving up enough shards to upgrade all of those pieces. 

The master spells I bought were not that impressive, they were level 80 spells that drop quite frequently, but I was pleased none the less. I bought my level 80 fairy heal special for 16p, and I got a level 80 group heal for 22p. I also picked up my level 52 rare spell for 1p which is nice. Every healer comes with a single target “anti death” as I call it, basically if your target receives fatal damage instead of dying it’ll boost their stats and apply a heal. Wardens get a group version of this spell at 52 that gets no upgrade. It was well past time I bought it. Those spells can never be over used, they’re great in rough times. Kasul died due to some frontals eating through him, but the run was smooth and really quick. The group consisted of a Shadowknight, Dirge, Illusionist, Swashbuckler, Assassin, and myself as warden. Hope everyone had a lot of fun, too!

Now I get to decide what I’m going to use my $100 EBGames card on…

I know it’s hard to tell by the screen shot, but that blue x4 mob is one of the epics in The Sanctorium, an instance located in Sinking Sands in the Graveyard. Yesterday I spent a few hours on various characters being mentored by Siege again who were going after achievement points. When Echoes of Faydark released, the achievements were re-set, though they have not been re-set since, that means that a LOT of the T5-T6 content still has aa for people who have not been there in a while. 

My bruiser reaped the bonus of this the most. I started out at level 57, and since she is on my ‘main’ account there’s a bonus of 40% experience. The account is also privy to the 5 year veteran reward that replenishes all of your adventure vitality, so once I ran out I clicked that and poof, back in business. 

We killed the two x4 blue encounters within The Sanctorium very easily, no healer in our group. While they did reward aa, there was only two wooden chests that dropped. We also did Hidden Cache, which is another instance in Sinking Sands. Upon finishing those we went and took down Meathooks, who I remember being far tougher way back when. He’s the x3 raptor in Sinking Sands. Mind you we only had one group and we were blowing through things. 

After that it was off to Pillars of Flame. We ran around looking for named that were up, and also headed to Ancients Table, and Cazels Mesa. Two instances that I remember doing a number of times when Desert of Flames released. It was really nice to see the old content, even if we were just blowing through it. Once that was done we headed to (of course) Shimmering Citadel, where we searched for names before heading into Poets Palace. Once that was cleared it was time for a break, and my bruiser who was 57, was 61. 

Later on in the evening another group wanted to take down some content. We spawned and defeated the gold and silver dragons in Maj’Dul who rewarded no aa but each dropped a master chest with a piece of fabled gear inside. We headed to Thundering Stepps and the Cove of Decay to take down the Epic Angler, who wasn’t so epic after all. Then it was time to defeat Mjolni, you may remember them as the dragon from the prismatic 1.0 chain. 

Not done after that, we headed to A Meeting of the Minds in the Ferrott, then to The Trembling Lagoon, and finally off to Lavastorm to down a random epic that was up in the zone. While the experience was nothing astounding since we were just taking down random epics, the aa was nice, and people seemed to have a good time. Apparently tonight since it’s a slow night Spirits of the Lost is on schedule. The zone is said to give between 3-5 aa due to the plethora of named located within. 

When that was done we decided to call it a night, everyone having got their fix. It was fun, and nice to spend the evening walking running down memory lane.

Restless last night, though it was no fault of any games. Just too much on my mind as happens this time of year. First of all, happy birthday to Calreth a good friend of mine on Antonia Bayle. One of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I joked with Tipa about playing ‘eenie meenie miney mo’ to try to figure out which character it was that I was going to play for the evening, but it wasn’t really a joke. I couldn’t settle down so I logged off for a few with the intentions of doing some art of some sort. Took far too long to come up with an idea for that, and after fumbling around with an image I eventually decided I wanted to do, I was asked if I wanted to head to the Anchor of Bazzul, a zone in The Moors of Ykesha that I’d not yet been to.

I was asked to go on my troubador, who had not yet seen any TSO content per say. This zone doesn’t reward any void shards, but it was great aa and a few bits of interesting loot (that no one wanted). Goudia got her 141st aa (yes, I am that much of a slacker) and here’s the kicker - I JUST betrayed to a troubador and what do I win? 

A DIRGE master. 

GAH!

I swear, if I didn’t have bad luck in games, I’d have no luck at all. 

The zone has a really fun encounter (that’s also sort of bugged) where you have to clear around The Keeper of the Banished, and then each member of the group clicks one of the cells where the Banished are being held, and morphs into the creatures much like you do for the Mark of The Awakened trials all uber and what not. You defeat the mob (and here’s where it gets tricky) once the mob is defeated you each have to click off the illusion, and then you have to defeat the banished guys that you just possessed. Apparently if it’s done correctly and all 6 of the banished forms are used, you’ll get a chest. More often then not though there is no chest reward at all and this is just a ‘get by me to the next stage’ of a zone. It was still a lot of fun though.

The zone itself was fairly easy. A few named have kickbacks and my Internet decided I was no longer going to play without LOTS of lag, so I left the group a few minutes to reset some computer stuff. Annoying. Everything worked fairly well after that. The final named required members to move three objects to the center of the room surrounding the named in a triangle pattern, we had enough dps that the group members only had to do this once. All in all fun zone even though nothing of any note dropped. A healer cloak that no one wanted, and a bunch of other trash. 

It would be really nice if I knew which character to settle on, but as of yet that hasn’t happened. It’s really hard to gear up 5+ characters, get them all their epics, and make sure they can all handle whatever it is they need to handle based on their class. Getting masters is also frustrating. So no progress in that direction yet. 

Still, a fun evening over all. I think the only instances I have not been to yet now are the ones in Loping Plains.

Yesterday compromised of a little bit of everything. It was great. I can’t think of one particular thing that stood out aside from the three hour nap while I was loaded up on extra strength tylanol but that had absolutely nothing to do with gaming. I think.

The 70-79 channel was particularly rude for no obvious reason I could figure out. You would think that people would be feeling more festive towards one another, but it turns out that this is not exactly true. I did two tradeskill instances, bringing my tailor to level 64, and the alchemist to levle 65. Five more levels or so to go and then I’ll go back to grinding writs for my experience so that Nostalgia can get some levels instead of leveling them through the wonderful instances. Oracia got herself a rolling pin that dropped from the instance. In all the time I’ve done them I’ve never seen that item before. It has a 3% increase to tradeskill experience, I wonder if it stacks along with the other bonus’ in game. I’ve been saving up a lot of transmuted parts, so I’ll probably put a mass of those for sale before too long. I have far too many that I’ll never use. 

I spent 100p yesterday on silicate loams. I know, why? Well. I’ve been thinking about betraying the dirge back to a troubador. I know I rarely play her, so why drop 100p? I doubt my reasoning will make sense to anyone other then myself. I changed her to a dirge thinking to myself ‘well, if I’m not going to raid with my bard, why not play something that has more group utility’. Hate transfer, rez, heals, etc. Turns out there are a billion dirges on the server right now and I don’t play her as a dirge, either. So why not go back to troub if I’m not playing and then maybe I at least have a chance at wiggling in on some raids. I have both of my epics for troub and dirge, and if I were ever to raid with her I could complete both mythicals at the same time, heh. Sort of funny (and sad). 

Aside from the crafting and spending much money, I did an instance or two. The VERY nice charm item above came from - you guessed it, The Crucible. An instance I’ve done so many times now I could sleep walk my way through it. The quest related to the zone yesterday also required no killing, just some clicking, so I ran my alts through and got them all their void shards. Later on in the evening Hellsong needed an update for chapter five (the final zone it sends you to) and off we went. In The Obelisk of Ahkzul (which is where we were) there is a named who drops two chests. Second last named. The first chest holds a legendary of some type, and the second one holds between 10-20 plat. 

We got 12 plat from the chest and some change, which was fantastic. The zone is quick and easy and Hellsong got his update just fine. 

It was starting to get late but I wasn’t tired yet, so I stayed up and did some of the Frostfell quests with Goudia. Even if I don’t decide to betray her, I have a paladin and a berzerker and a swashbuckler who could all make use of the loams eventually. I ran the Icy Keep instance a few times amassing tokens to purchase the charm item that everyone is talking about. Still lamenting over the fact that there’s no healer version. 

All in all, a really nice weekend! Hope everyone else had a great one too.

Yesterday was a fairly good day as far as leveling goes. I dusted off my swashbuckler and headed to The Mines of Meldrath in Steamfont. I used an experience potion from /claim and the levels were pretty fast, and before I knew it she hit level 52. I don’t have any cobalt clusters to make her some gear or weapons, but I’m hoping I can level to 60+ before that becomes too much of an issue. 

Afterwards it was time for the bruiser to get a little love, and I headed to an Everfrost TSO zone. The zone actually ended up being bugged, and no matter how many times me and my group attempted the third named, he would life tap to 100% health. Searching the forums came up with all sorts of other people with the exact same issue. Since we had just taken him down the day before I was a little annoyed that now he was bugged (expected fix: Next update) but there wasn’t much I could do about it last night. The bruiser did manage to get to level 54 though. Another character I’m trying to push through the dreaded 50’s.

So my group decided we would forgo the alts for the evening, and do a TSO instance that most of us (if not all of us) had never been to before. For me personally, that means 1 EF zone, 2 CL zones, 1 Lavastorm zone, 3 LP zones, 3 Moors zones, and the 3 zones in Fens of Nathsar. We decided to head to the Fens of Nathsar and explore Nu’roga. Friends had told us this zone could be solo healed, and said it was ‘medium’ on terms of difficulty. 

I’m not sure if it’s just because it was late, or if I was off on my game but DANG this was a hard zone. The group consisted of myself (warden), a shadowknight, ranger, assassin, dirge, and warlock. Since I was the only healer I really had to keep on my toes. The first named is a giant drake, and you have to pull him some what close to these two goblins who have stoneskin on. He casts a dispell, and he will dispell not only all of your buffs (and heals if they’re on someone) but he’ll also dispell the two goblins with stoneskin, so that you can attack them. We fought these guys (dying twice first) for 15 minutes before finding the spot to position the wyvern. If you fight him directly on top of the plat form, for some reason he doesn’t dispell. So we had to pull him a few feet away from the base of the platform every time we killed him. Long, hard fight and I’ve never healed so frantically as I did that encounter. 

The other named were all fairly easy, but there are not many of them. This zone is FILLED with trash that you have to clear, and they hit HARD. Typically I don’t see the hitpoints jump around as often as they did last night, spiking from one minute to the next. 

The loot was exceptionally abysmal. The stats seemed lower (it’s a required 80 zone and we got a ring that’s for level 77’s) then every other instance I’d been to, with +25 to most things, and +90 or even +70 to health and power with few effects. For the difficulty of the zone I’d say this is NOT worth it, and if it wasn’t for the fact that we did manage to get two void shards (quest + chest) along with a heritage quest update (cloak needs 12 shard drops from mobs) then I’d avoid it. There’s certainly no way I’m going back unless I really have to. 

By the time we finished it was bed. I believe today is when Frostfell goes live and I’m really looking forward to that. I should be spending some time in Vanguard today as well if all goes according to plan. I was going to play a little last night, but just wasn’t in the mood.

There’s only one main down side I have to having so many characters in this new TSO expansion. Because everything is purchased with void shards or Far Seas Tokens, I have shards spread out on multiple characters but no one character has amassed a large amount. There’s about 20 crafting tokens spread over 5 characters, and 10 void shard tokens spread over a few characters as well (I know, I have been slacking in the adventuring department). A few people had raids cancelled so they asked me if I wanted to head to Everfrost and do an instance with them. Sure! The group was made up of a Shadowknight, Assassin, Templar, Dirge, Fury, and myself as Coercer. Albrta and Eyenstein both went, something that has been rare as of late, and we had a blast.

We had a great amount of DPS and the mobs dropped easily enough. When you zone in there is a hallway to the left and the right, and you’re offered a quest right away too.  We cleared all of the rooms along the way on the first floor, headed upstairs and took a right. We cleared the rooms there and then it was time to place the little statues. If you stand in the center there are special windows that you can look through that tells you where to place each statue. Easy enough. Killed the named and nothing too impressive dropped, but it was fun. We had to be careful of some minor AOE’s. 

When it came to burning the room of named down to 50% before placing them over their little coloured platforms, we had a lot of fun. I wasn’t sure if we burned just one to 50, then put them over their stand, or burn all to 50 and place them. Turns out they all come. We had the shadowknight tank all three of the name (who also spawn adds during the fight) and then once we worked them all down to 50% we moved them over to their proper coloured platforms and there they stayed. The named talked for a bit and then we took him down as well. He does have some aoe’s. Seems like everything has aoe’s these days. 

Nothing really phased us until we got to the final named, we did die once because we forgot to pull the named out of the center so that people can see the books and scrolls that spawn on the floor. We had the dirge and assassin on book duty, this allowed us to slow our fight down enoough not to be worried about when the items would spawn. You just have to click them, and as long as you have two people in the center who have their effects on high enough to see the items drop, you’ll be fine. Make sure they grab the torches first. There is an aoe that goes off just before the scrolls and books drop in the middle, so if you’re not sure when it’s about to happen (even though it’s every 20%) you can always look for that. The adds that spawn after the books are clicked are single one up mobs, the dirge and assassin in the center took care of those while we continued to take down the mob. 

There are other methods of doing this encounter. You can stun / stifle the mob so that his text doesn’t go off and he doesn’t spawn the books. You can put up an aoe avoidance spell so that the aoe doesn’t touch you. Or you can just have two people click the books, which is really the easiest way to go. Slow your dps right down and just take it easy. We didn’t have any issues with the named once we set our book clickers in the center while we were off to the side, but I realize that since I was with 4 mythical geared people (templar and myself are not raiders) the encounter may not be as easy for everyone else. 

A nice legendary earring dropped that was an upgrade for Shadowgeist, it was nice to see since it’s rare that any of the raid geared people want something from the zones. We also got our void shard key on one of the very first mobs, and the chest was on the main floor, so we got our shards after not even clearing the first floor which was nice. 

The mission sends you around the zone to click items, chests and book pages. By the end of the evening I walked away with two void shards and had a lot of fun with good friends. It was nice to see a zone where you don’t HAVE to have an enchanter along to beat it. I did no mezing at all. However, I would say that this zone does need two healers. Deep Forge is the only zone I’ve been in so far that we didn’t take two healers (I solo healed it with only one death on the warden). 

I am enjoying how each zone has a different feel, and looks different, and has a different puzzle. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to do the Guk ones before too long, as well as the loping plains ones, I haven’t been there yet.

Yesterday was another great adventure in EQ2, and not all of it (again) was spent in TSO, which is something that I’m enjoying quite a bit. Gnewton created an alt on Najena (his home is typically Kithicor) and played the monk halfling for a while, it’s always great to see people in guild. We’re still really small (and casual) so there’s not a lot of people on. We did manage to hit level 31 though, and are well on our way to 32. Kasul helped me get some experience on Petites (my templar) in Jarsath Wastes. The quest grind there is just as boring as I remember it though. I used to be able to play for hours on end with no issues but as of late I need a lot more breaks before I start getting bored. It was still a nice chunk of experience though for the time spent. 

The alchemist (along with carpenter) also headed off to a tradeskill zone. I used a potion and moused over my experience during the process. Not bad! I gained two levels, sitting me at 63. The group instance yesterday was the Firemyst one, where you have to gear up a few dwarves, and I encountered my first ‘bug’ though it did fix itself. Sort of. When the army was finally geared up, they got cold feet, and refused to follow their Commander into battle. For five minutes or so I stood around waiting for the end encounter to happen so that we could go get our chest. After a few minutes the Commander (sans army) ran off after the bad guys who instantly died the second he got close to them. Powerful fella. Even though the script didn’t run properly, the chest did spawn once the commander made it to the end of the field. A piece of rare wood, an artisan item, and the tailor item that I’d already gotten were the rewards. There was also a new solo tradeskill quest that I picked up yesterday that requires you to harvest some items in the Fallen Dynasty zones. Didn’t have time to complete it because as soon as dinner was done it was off to Sebilis!

Azztec is a friend of mine from Antonia Bayle, actually an old guild leader. The guild I raided with fell apart when some officers took control and made some choices that not everyone agreed with. They sacrificed friends and a friendly atmosphere to ‘go after the prize’ and shortly after that I moved to Najena. A few months later Azztec followed. He has a few level 80’s already, but a little while ago started up a templar. I was impressed by how fast he leveled, and before I knew it he was asking Shadowgeist for help with his epic. So yesterday Shadowgeist, Azztec, Kasul, Gellawyn, Mindblade, and I (on Silhouette, the coercer) headed to Sebilis to finish the last few bits he needed. Along the way we hit every named that was up for aa points, which was great. We also took down the named that dropped the tunic on the right hand side, except Azztec rolled greed instead of need (ack!) and I rolled greed (even though everyone else declined and I should have declined as well). This is just another example of why I absolutely love customer support at SOE. I have petitioned them for two pages worth of things on my main account over the past few years and have never had an issue with them so long as I wasn’t asking for something impossible, and I wasn’t rude. I petitioned last night to see if there was any way that the tunic could be returned to the rightful person, and less then 20 minutes after I had sent in the request I noticed that there was a blank spot in my inventory where the item used to be, low and behold, Azztec had it. Thank you! Between the guide events and the customer service, I really think SOE has done things very well. I realize everyone has their horror stories, and I’m really sorry for those who have had bad experiences, but my own personal ones have been nothing but good.

Azztec finally got all of his Sebilis updates with minimal pain, and the group split up to take a break. That wasn’t the end of the adventures though, a few hours later I headed off to Miragul’s Phylactery: The Crucible, which I’ll write about more later.