Tag: Valdeholm

Your Typical Friday Night

The group headed back to camp for the ever elusive augment that refuses to drop for us, ever. We spent a few more hours clearing place holders and a good portion of the zone before deciding that life is too short, and we moved on to greener pastures. Well, not exactly greener. More like blue. 

Our first destination was Plane of Water, to camp a few more fabled. The zone is quite small, so even with two other groups it felt crowded. Plus things are on a 40 minute timer which means lots of time standing around doing nothing. The ‘regular’ fabled mobs who drop the gate necklace bit were all over the place, and they’re hard and mean. We did see the bard swarm weapon fabled a few times – but we had no bards around, so grats rot. 

The highlight of the evening was Kameeko getting a clicky that transforms her into an inanimate object. It has 600 power on it and some fairly nice stats, plus it’s a clicky so how could you not adore it. At first I didn’t think it was an upgrade, but my eyes were obviously failing me and I wasn’t reading the stats proper. 

I was feeling pretty cranky for the evening, purchasing a new video card wasn’t exactly on my list of things to do, and a few other (smaller) things kept it from being one of those awesome Friday nights that you have oodles of fun with. After camping water for a little while we decided to head back to Valdeholm which I am honestly just tired of. I love the idea that there are hot zones – but what I wish is that every zone that was previously a hot zone, remained. Why? Well it’s simple.

Why restrict where people are leveling. I realize you probably want to see a concentrated population for groups, but people don’t group all that much anyhow. I’d love to see options on where to group. As it is if you want a hot zone for the higher levels you’re restricted to two places, and after grinding experience in those two places you get fairly bored of it. Why not leave all the previous hot zones as hot zones, and allow the community to spread out a little bit. There are lots of places I’d love to go but it’s either too hard and above my skill level right now – or the experience is so insignificant that there’s no reason to even be there.

Games need to stop trivializing their own zones. In EQ2 I’ve talked about this with the con system, how encounters can go grey so unless you’re an avid quest person (or you have someone to mentor) there’s no real reason to travel back to any zone that you’ve already out leveled. In EQ at least the mobs still drop items if they’re ‘grey’ to you since there is no grey mobs really. Would this create issues with players camping named? Well, no one is camping those old grey zones anyhow, so maybe breath a little life back into it. 

I believe today my trio is headed to Anguish to (try to) kill some mobs that drop augments. We’re not big enough (or well geared enough) to take on the named by ourselves, but there is trash that will drop handy things, plus the few brief glimpses I had of the zone were mostly of the floor, as I was dying. I haven’t been back since the necromancer got her 2.0 completed. 

Which reminds me, I still want to work on Kameeko’s (enchanter) 1.0 and 1.5 – it’s a little more difficult with fabled up though. When the old world gods are all fabled versions of the original they hurt a LOT more. Other then that, I’m not sure what’s going on this weekend. Grand adventures of some sort no doubt! Monday night I’ll be playing LotRO with Kasul (supposed to be during the day but he’s switched his shift around to help out a coworker, so it will be in the evening instead) so look for some updates then. 

In the mean time, happy gaming and see you in Norrath!


Questing, Leveling, Options!

One of the main reasons I enjoy EverQuest is that there is simply so much to do. While there may not be player housing (which draws me to Vanguard as well as EQ2) there is so much other stuff I never feel as though I have nothing to do. This also comes with a downside though – you can feel overwhelmed, like there is too much to do. If you’re a fan of alts (and lets face it, I can’t even pretend that I’m not) this may make you feel even MORE overwhelmed because of the desire to accomplish everything on all characters. 

Take for instance crafting. It’s a long complicated process (that has gone through many changes over time) especially if you take into consideration the crafting trophies. Then there are also the aa you dedicate to the skills. Not to mention the fact that any character can learn all crafts (minus tinkering and things like alchemy and poison making). Countless hours go into farming supplies for crafting, and if not farming, well a whole lot of money goes into the process. That’s just one aspect of the game.

Questing is another complicated side. Have you heard of the quest Breakdown in Communication (also known as BiC)? It’s one of the longest quests in game and people worked for (literally) years completing it. Yesterday my group started working on a second one that came out with The Buried Sea for a hand augment. The quest chain is 39 tasks long. I think we got close to 10 of them done yesterday, maybe 8. Each quest rewarded a bit of bone that I assume gets combined into the final skeletal hand augment by the end of things. 

What makes things even more complicated is that this quest in particular is a solo quest. If you do it in a group (as I was, with two others) it takes even longer because none of the drops are group drops. You’re not just looking for 10 ultra-rare bottles of rum, you’re looking for 30. It’s one aspect of EQ I wish would change to encourage grouping a little more. 

If I’m not in the mood to quest nor to craft there’s always just plain leveling. Already at the cap of 85? No worries, there are a LOT of achievement points to obtain. Afraid of not being able to catch up? Since the points now scale based on how many you already have it’s quicker then ever to gain a few. Especially if you are in a hot zone. 

Simply exploring some place new is great too. Just watch out because you may find yourself lost (as I do, often) or being chased down by large groups of angry critters. 

The only time I find myself floundering on what to do in game is when I’m personally feeling restless and that’s simply because there is so many options I can’t settle on just one. Give me a game that offers me multiple venues to explore and that’s the game I’ll end up sticking with the longest even if it’s a combination of questing and pvp and crafting or some other weird combination. I’m sure the main reason for my choices comes from the fact that I have quite a bit of spare time to play these games. People who are a little more restricted in that aspect may dislike the fact that there are so many choices and so many paths to take. A game with fewer options can easily become appealing if you’ve only got time for so much. 

Enough with the rambling! The druid hit level 72 yesterday, exploring through The Buried Sea working on the hand augment quest and then hanging out in Valdeholm for the evening. The enchanter is practically level 79, but I just didn’t have the patience last night to try to gain the last 3% she needs. When you’re watching the experience bar it seems to just stand still.

Today? Crafting, aside from some real life chores. I’d really like to get my halfling tailor her craft trophy and there are of course numerous other side quests I’m looking forward to doing. 

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!


The Fabled Sword of Truth, and Leveling.

Sword graphic on the right hand side is the Fabled Sword of truth – a pretty impressive piece of gear that comes with a very unique graphic that everyone adores. The sword comes from The Fabled Lord Inquisitor Seru in Sanctus Seru. One of the many fabled that are highly sought after during the month of fabled drops.

Yesterday was fairly quiet. My 63 druid is now part way into level 69, having spent some time in both Stoneroot and Valdeholm yesterday. Lesson of the devoted is a great veteran reward and everyone in the group happily burned theirs. I also used an experience potion (or two) to help climb through the levels. I expect things will slow down again around level 70+ but I really love playing the druid in any case. I boxed the enchanter along with her for some experience yesterday, who is creeping up on level 79. I should get started on the druids epic some time, I haven’t looked into it but I know it’s on the long list of things I’d like to do ‘some day.’

I’d also like to work on the Bristlebane firework quest – which is going to be a 20+ hour quest no matter how you look at it. The party machine that shoots fireworks off is in one zone at a time, for one real life hour. There are 20 zones, so even if you were to follow it, it would take 20 hours to get the updates to each location. I’m thinking if I cut it down to 5 locations a day that may be easier. We’ll just have to see how it goes though. As of yet I’ve only just managed to pick up the quest. Then there’s also the 10th anniversary deity quests that I’d like to complete, the aa from them is apparently very nice. We’ll just have to see!

Sorry for the short post today but real life has me doing other stuffs so for now this is it! See you in Norrath, and I hope everyone has a fantastic Wednesday.


Ding, Necromancer hits 80!

Well, I may not be at the level cap yet, but I’m slowly inching my way closer! Last night saw us hanging out at our usual Smith camp, and before I knew it I finally hit level 80 with the necromancer! With not quite 9 days played, I’m really happy about this. Of course, she only has 100aa and still has 5 levels to go before hitting the cap, but this brings me significantly closer. Since I’ve already got the necromancer 2.0 that adds another little accomplishment to the list.

The enchanter is not that far behind, sitting part way into level 78 for now. She’s and older character and just for a comparison she’s got 70 days or so played, with 150aa. I’ve had her since I started playing EQ though, and back before hot zones and before leveling was so much easier.

I spent some time working on my tradeskills as well – I finally managed to raise jewel crafting a few more points. I’m trying to decide which skill I want to raise next. There is an amazing craft quest that I want to do – and it requires at least 250 in all skills and I also want to get the aa for each of those crafts so I imagine that’s what I’ll be working on for the next little while. A huge thank you to the folks I’ve been playing with, without our little team of adventurers I wouldn’t have made it as far as I have. Of course having mercenary NPC available helps out a great deal too, that extra healer (or two) is great. Now we want to work through the SoD progression quests in order to unlock the higher level mercenary. The level 85 ones Journeyman RK5 have approx. 30k power – and that would be REALLY nice. The tank mercenary don’t seem to fair as well and they’re a little more difficult to control, but perhaps being able to unlock the higher tiers of those too would help. We’ll just have to see!

Purchasing spells will be another adventure for me, there’s so many that I’m missing because they’re priced so high in the bazaar. Which reminds me, I have a level 80 rogue pet that I need to purchase from Hills of Shade (I believe that’s the zone) some time! My last solo wander through that zone ended up with some undead taking a huge chomp out of me. Thank goodness I have the veteran reward that allows me to re-gain all of my experience, because I lost a good 8% and was 0% into level 80 when it happened. I decided to just stay safe until I can get a buffer in the mean time.

Hope everyone is having an amazing weekend!


Ding, 79 Necromancer (and 78 Enchanter)

Located within the highest icy peaks of the Serpent’s Spine Mountains is the home of the Krithgor, a species of giants which, unlike other giants in Norrath, are intelligent — some even masters of magic. 

Long ago and much to the chagrin of the other gods, Rallos Zek’s creations — the giants, orcs, ogres, and goblins — invaded the Plane of Earth. Among the giants who did not partake in the war was Beltron, the Krithgor king, who died a short time after the war’s end. The most noble of giants marched into Frostcrypt, the giant burial grounds, to lay their king to rest while the remaining giants stayed in their city, Valdeholm. 

That day in Frostcrypt, Rallos Zek committed an atrocity upon his own creations, setting a curse upon them, an event which marked the origin of the Shades of Zek. Now, the mission of the Shades is to end their creator’s curse. In order to accomplish this, they believe, every living Krithgor giant must be slain. To this day, the curse lives on as the Shades of Frostcrypt do battle with the living and fully functioning Wraithguards and citizens of Valdeholm. – Zam.com

Valdeholm has been my “home away from home” for a little while now. It’s the level 70 hot zone, and the experience has been really nice. There are a few camps that people seem to head to by instinct. One is the pit located right at the beginning of the zone. This is a great spot but the pulls can be a little slow if you’ve got a full group. My little trio (complete with boxed enchanter and cleric) typically heads to the Smith which is just down from the North gate. The north gate is typically camped by people who are looking to farm a particular named who drops a nice augment. My group managed to get one almost right away so we haven’t been after any named.

We’ve gotten a lot of spell drops and I’m hoping that my little bazaar mules will make some coin as people return to check out the anniversary events. I noticed that SOE is holding another contest that I can’t partake in because I don’t live in the US. Shame because I’d really love to enter, too. Anyhow, we’ve been grinding out experience in the hot zone and it’s been a lot of fun. Oh, not to mention the fact that my necromancer is level 79, almost level 80! The enchanter is level 78, and heading towards 79. So yes, the experience has been amazing.

When we were tired of that zone we headed to The Mechamatic Guardian, which is a giant robot who wanders along in Dragonscale hills. Typically when you wander in front of this giant robot, he kicks you. It hurts. It hurts bad. However there are also missions you can obtain and when you run up to his right foot while you’re on one of these missions you’ll get the option to either zone in – or be kicked. Who would choose “please kick me” I have no idea.

The experience in these missions is also pretty good, there’s some rare loot, chance at named, and the zone respawns. We haven’t actually completed the missions yet which is fine by me. Being this close to 80 is exceptionally exciting, I’ve never been so close to the level cap before and certainly not in so short of a time period. The grind from 80-85 I know is quite long but I don’t think I’ll mind it in the least bit. 

I’ve been back playing EverQuest for a month now, and it’s been so much fun. I’m looking forward to seeing what other trouble adventures I can get into – rumour has it that fabled starts on Monday, and every day when I listen to the general channel there are a few more people who have come back to the game to see how things are. It’s fantastic (even if I’m not on my ‘home’ server). I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend no matter where you’re gaming. 

Oh, and on a completely unrelated note – I’ve finally updated my ShutterCal account with pictures for the last few months, I had seriously neglected the site and I’m so glad to be back into the swing of things again. You can see my ShutterCal account here, and you’ll find lots of pictures from my trip to San Diego there as well. Safe travels!


More Valdeholm, Levels, Clickies, and Raids!

Yesterday was a great day in game. I didn’t just play EQ, I spent a little time in Runes of Magic (which I’ll write about a bit more later). Don’t forget today is Daylight Savings, so turn your clocks ahead an hour if you have not yet (thankfully my computer does this for me). The day was also great because Ultann managed to get his internet back, so our team was back to full, teehee. With everyone back it was only a matter of deciding what to do. I’ve mentioned a few times how much of a fan of clickies I am. In some cases they are almost essential, such as raids. When you have a mass amount of people all collected in one space you don’t want to be huge. I know, odd concept. There is a clicky item that drops from a mission in Stoneroot (Depths of Darkhollow zone, see that Ninga, I got it right!), and so that’s where our adventures took us. 

Apparently (from what I was told) this item is really rare. I was told not to expect to see it for 10+ missions, easily. That 30+ hours of farming went into obtaining it. 

Always eager to prove people wrong, it dropped on the 2.5th mission we did. Hah! This little earring click is fantastic, I love it. Not only does it act as a shrink but it acts as a shrink for others, which is important when I’m boxing – plus it casts super fast. No more tiny companion spell scribing for me! A huge thank you to Ultann and Ninga who helped me camp this (even if it was super easy) it was still a lot of fun. 

We had not expected to get the clicky that fast, so we were not sure where to head to next. Eventually we settled on Valdeholm which is the level 70 hot zone (and is a part of The Serpents Spine expansion). The mobs there were higher level then Dreadspire, and there were 15 others in the zone. We headed towards the Smith, and camped a little corner around his building for a while. The necromancer eased her way into level 77 and the enchanter is creeping closer to level 75. 

Ultann is almost (but not quite) level 83, but the experience is slow going. After a little while we decided it was time to do something crazy, what else could be said about a Saturday night. 

So we picked up where we left off with the Dragons of Norrath expansion, and do Tier3 of the progression which includes the following:

Tier 3: Embrace of the Dark Reign 

In order to continue on after this step, you must have high aimiable faction. 

If you speak with General Lereh Dirr, you can gain access to the Reflections of Silver and Kessdona’s Perch events – two non-progression missions. 

On the progression end of things, you must now speak to Officer Sirrikis Ryktor, who will assign you three tasks: 

“Muddy the Waters” — Kill 9 Stillmoon Water Servants in Stillmoon Temple 
“Snowfoot Attack” — Kill 10 Snowfoot Goblins in The Ascent 
“Knowledge is Power” — Loot 7 x Ancient Scroll of Knowledge from Thundercrest Isles 

Upon completing these tasks and speaking with the Commander, you will have access to a single group mission and raid event: 

“The Gilded Scroll” — single-group mission given by Officer Vacax Rol`Tas. Go into the Thundercrest Isles and kill mobs, looting scrolls off their corpses. Upon looting the correct one, it will turn into a Gilded Scroll of Earth Rending. After this, kill Noble Kirin Scholar. Do this and turn the gilded scroll in to Daleynn Spiritshadow in Lavastorm for a flag. 

“Volkara’s Bite” — 42-player raid in Lavaspinner’s Lair, results in Lava Spider Spinners from Volkara, a lava spider. 

Give the Lava Spider Spinners to the Commander for a character flag and move on to the next raid event. 

“Trial of Perseverance” is a 24-player raid in Stillmoon Temple, results in Goblin Warlord’s Beads from A Stillmoon Warlord. 

Turn the beads in to the commander to receive: 

-Two AAs 
-New ability: Embrace of the Dark Reign (increase buff slot limit by one)
 

(Walk through is from Zam)

The first time we attempted Volkara’s Bite we died. We didn’t realize that the dot she was so frantically casting was also a mana drain, so our healer ran out of mana. This fight is a LOT like the Thuuga raid in EQ2. As you kill Volkara, she spawns cocoons and then those hatch into spiders if you don’t dps them down fast enough. If you die, bad things also happen (as we found out when the enchanter died, twice). 

So we buffed back up and headed back to give it another shot. Keep in mind this raid was meant for 42 players – and we were one 80 monk, 84 magician, 80 cleric, and then myself as 77 necromancer and 74 enchanter. It doesn’t matter if the raid is out of date, it still hurts. 

We managed against all odds to win the second time around, burning through the last cocoons at 10% instead of dealing with them. Of course we did die to the spider adds once we finished killing Volkara, but it was alright, we still won! Afterwards we did the 24-person raid which was far easier, and collected our updates. 

By the time those two raids were done (we’d skipped the three missions before that, they can be done out of order if you have someone else who is able to get the raids) I was starting to feel a little sleepy, so I called it a night and headed to bed. It was a lot of fun though, and I hope everyone else had fun too. Today? Who knows!


Now That’s a Canon

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!


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