Feerott Acess Soon!
Yay I just dinged 31 right before the daily server shutdown time. So, if I can find a couple of groups to mow through things in Nektropos Castle or Varsoon, I should hit 32 in a couple of days. When that happens you bet I will be heading straight for the Feerott Access quest giver! With Feerott Access we may just be able to finish off the Journey Is Half The Fun heritage quest and bump the guild up a few more levels... or maybe a couple of levels anyway.
I still have outstanding quests to do in Nektulos Forest. There's the fairy language quest, the Treant Lore and Legend ones, and a couple inside the Castle too. At level 31 I think even a level 40 can join the group without needing to mentor.
Well anyway, more to come soon!
Everling Must Die!
Today I got into a pickup group that was heading into the Nektropos Castle. Everyone needed different things in there, but there was one common one we needed - Lord Everling. Anyway our group was pretty well rounded... 2 healers, an illusionist, 2 tanks and me.
We were actually doing really well, taking down mob after mob with little problems. We even finished the 6 sisters and got their locket to unlock the basement.
However, when we went near to the basement, things started to get hairy. Healers were running out of power, and then the main tank fell. Secondary tank fell 30 secs later. Everyone scattered and ran... but nobody survived the massacre. Since everyone died, we had to release to a respawn spot outside the castle, and we can't get back in until 18 hours have passed.
Man that was so close... a few more mobs and we would have been facing Everling.... darnit! Everling Must Die!.... soon... I hope.
Nektulos Forest
Lately I have been spending a lot of time in Nektulos Forest. It's a fascinating place, and most times, dark and dinghy. What's fascinating about this place is that it's teeming with both Freeportians and Qeynosians, sometimes I get the feeling there are more Freeportians than Qeynosians in this place.
I have many quests outstanding that require parts to be done in Nektulos Forest itself. Since I have just turned 30, I expect more and more quests in the future to take place in zones that contain both Freeportians and Qeynosians. No longer are we "sheltered" like in the past when we were in Antonica and Thundering Steppes. Seeing a Freeportian in those zones are rare.
Now that I have hit 30, I am just thinking that I might have a wander back into the Condemned Catacombs, where an earlier group attempt got interrupted when we couldn't zone back in for 18 hours after we picked up Brenu. I still need eyes and statues from that place, and will see if I can solo it. If not, I can always ask just 1 or 2 people to come along. Now that we're in the 30s we don't really need a full group for this.
In the meantime, I think tonight's agenda will be to advance as many quests as I can in Nektulos. After all, some of them look easy - just find items scattered around Nektulos Forest itself. I probably will not touch Enchanted Lands or Zek for some time yet though.
Bummer! Live Update 7 today...
Ok I get home from work, log on and expected the servers to shutdown at 7pm as usual.
Nothing.
Then... at 8.30pm, the dreaded message came - Servers will be down for update, expected downtime is 4 hours.
FOUR HOURS! That can only mean one thing - Live Update 7 is going to hit! I am looking forward to the following exerpts from the notes:
- Earn guild status points for defeating epic encounters!
- We've made significant improvements to the griffin rides. You will notice that the routes are more scenic, takeoffs are smoother, and the flight will be much more enjoyable.
- Guild status points are now awarded when you defeat the following epic encounters: Vaz'Gok The Cursed, Anguis, Ladon, Coldtooth, Acrimoniad, Agelidaes, N'Kzak, The Krathuk, King Zatan, Solusek's Fist, Asphyxia, Grumzod, Borxx, Alangria, Knubed, Venekor, Xiggalg, Lord Nagalik, Hand of the Caldera, Archlich Udalan, Rognog the Angler, King Zalak the Ancient, Overlord Oxulius, Tremblar the Behemoth, The Vision of Vox, Vanudozalon the Elusive, Niscanith, Trenda'loz the Caller, Darathar, King Drayek, Spirit of Vox, Element of Vox, and The Fragments of Vox.
- Aggro NPCs will now stop chasing you much sooner if you haven't attacked them. When they give up, they will be invulnerable to attack until they return to the spot where they became aggro.
- Those who finished the Dusty Blue Stone quest and opted not to continue on with the Ghoulbane heritage quest can now speak to Toranim in North Qeynos. After making the proper offering, the quest will once again be offered.
- The Quest Journal now has a dropdown that lets you choose to sort quests by category (the way they are sorted now) or by current zone. Choosing the latter option lets you sort quests into zone names based on the current step each is on. Not all quests have been adjusted to use this new option, so some will be listed as "Unknown." Correct classifications for older quests will be added in future updates.
Yes indeed folks. Now I get to continue the quest I stopped yesterday at getting the baton in Dusty Blue Stone! So... when the system is up again I'm gonna go talk to the priest guy and get it back! Can never hurt to have more heritage points!
As for the Quest Journal, yeah... in Everquest 2, as I have commented before to players in-game, the name given to the game is very apt. You have so many quests that it's hard to keep track of what needs to be done. Very often, I will go to a zone to kill x number of things because after flipping through my journal I conciously notice I need x mobs from this zone. So once I have done x mobs I will zone out to report back to the quest giver. Then when I zone out, I see that I needed to do more things in the previous zone because all the quest givers are in the zone I am heading to now!
However with this new info, I can now know WHAT I need to do in the current zone without conciously looking for it! Yes, finally! Now I can stay in a zone and do whatever I can to finish all tasks before zoning out! No more grumbling about "I wish I had seen this quest earlier"!
Nice... now if only they will hurry up and finish the updates....
Nektropos Access
Last night I decided to work on 2 things.
- Start on the Nektropos Access quest. After all, I will eventually need Everling to complete the Haddens Earring quest, which is a heritage quest.
- Complete the Dusty Blue Stone quest up to the point of awarding me alternative weapons instead of going for the heritage quest, Recovering Ghoulbane.
So I started on the
Dusty Blue Stone first. Was pretty easy, some fed-ex deliveries, kill some easy stuff and bam! I got the quest done as well as getting a baton (which I probably cannot use until level 35).
For the Nektropos quest, first stop is to look for a nomad. Yup, found her near the bridge going up to the Commonlands in Nektulos Forest. She gives me a book, and it said to go to Timber Falls. So off to the Northwest we go. As I got nearer I discovered a new location - Tomb of Night.
So after that, it tells me to go to N'mar's Ascent. That is a familiar place because I jumped and SURVIVED the fall during Sunday's Heritage Run. So off I trot. The difference is now, without all the high levels in the group, the things are no longer grey, and I had to fight my way to N'mar's Ascent, as well as
UP it. Eventually the quest updated and now I have to head to Bone Lake, which is way, way, way up in the North.
I kinda stopped there, and decided to return to Thundering Steppes to finish up some loose ends there. I tried to spawn the final scout in the
Outland Brigade Reports quest but somehow they didn't spawn. So I decided to fulfil the Wandering Auger's quest and kill large crabs down in the southwest of Thundering Steppes.
It was there that I ran into Epiphonia, and she was there looking for fallen giants, which I needed too for
Trials of Sir Morgan quest. After failing miserably at taking on one giant (we failed because of a sudden add) we looked for more and eventually got Therios and another guy, a bruiser (evil monk). We kinda swept the place up, got Epi her giants, and then headed down into the Dead River Bed to look for Drowned Footsoldiers for me.
With their help I turned in 3 quests yesterday. Now if only I could get the damn centaurs to spawn.. they didn't want to with Therios around hehehehe!
Ding 28!
Yes!!! Now I'm level 28...
Ok I should hurry up and write this. Don't wanna get to bed too late. Anyway yeah, tried to look for a group for Varsoon's, since I still needed 4 dust shrillers in there and there is no way in heck I can solo 27^^ dust shrillers (what a difference from CoH huh?).
So, tried to look for a group, but whaddya know, it turns out I had to form one. In any case, we went into Varsoon's and fought lotsa stuff. Dinged 28 and then realised my bo is turning green, which means it's time for me to get a new weapon. A quick check of the market later revealed that there was really nothing much better than what I had, dangit!
I guess I will have to look tomorrow when I get home from work. I need either a new bo or get some handwraps. Seen a couple going for 2 gold pieces EACH, that would mean I have to spend FOUR gold pieces for handwraps for both hands! Man the prices are way steep!
Anyway, cross-fingers. Hope I get a new weapon soon, somehow.
Heritage Quest Run
Ok this was the wildest weekend ever (so far!).
The guild had a double-whammy event on Saturday, which started at 11pm Singapore time. First was to get access quests done for people who needed access to Enchanted Lands, Zek, and Feerott. Unfortunately I'm not high enough to even get the quest for Feerott so I did only Zek and Enchanted Lands one.
The irritating thing was that during the Zek quest, Pacific Internet apparently decided to do some maintenance (4am Singapore time) and so I had lots of lag and even a few disconnects. Turns out I had to re-do the Zek one via 56K dialup (ugh!!). Well in any case, didn't lose connection that time and got the Zek access quest done.
By the time it was all said and done it was already around 5.30am. The next event was supposed to kick off at 7am Singapore time so I thought I may as well stay up and join the run. Poor Brenu had to run the Antonica leg 3 times to get it done. See, this is what you get for being a gnome - short legs, runs slow hehehehe!
Anyway I joined them all the way up to completing the Nektulos Forest run, by which time it was about 11am. Decided to call it a night and logged off. Staying up for close to 18 hours on a game is sometimes abit too much :)
In the meantime, Setsuna (fellow monk, female elven) created a whole host of alts and ran them thru Freeport. Eventually I believe she got the Ratonga scout up to 11 or so, before I had to go.
Well maybe I'll see her again tonite and can talk more with her on her alts. Our conversations during the run were pretty brief because I had to concentrate on the run and not get left behind, so had to provide terse answers.
Enchanted Lands
Woohoo just hit level 27!
Currently working on the Enchanted Lands Access Quest, and I'm currently stuck at the part to talk to the fisherman. The guy is a level 30 even mob, and since I encountered him at 26, I had zero chance against him.
Sometimes I miss City of Heroes. In CoH, a +4 is almost not a problem for most scrappers. Nite-Hawk wipes the floor with +5s and +6s in CoH.. hits for very little, but he won't die. In EQ2, dang... anything over +2 even, and it's a very tough fight.
Ah well time to look for a group or something to get it done. Or, wait till 11pm tonight and join the guild for the access quests..
Frogloks, Armour and Monks
Ok first of all, I got my Armour Quests ALL done! FINALLY! I look pretty spiffy in the full monk get-up I must say. I thought Shadowdash was going to be really tough, but it turned out that he's only a level 25 and not even marked as a heroic mob. However he does spawn with 2 helpers so I would need to be level 27 at least, to solo him and his friends.
But, my new comrade-in-arms Setsuna, a fellow monk although an elven female one, should help alot if we were to face him and his friends again for her Armour Quest. However I think I would feel safer with 3 on the team than just 2 of us. We
COULD pull it off with 2 though but it will probably be tough.
Frogloks - they are the mysterious frog race of people that was supposed to be available in EQ2 from the start but somehow the devs held them back. It was announced yesterday that Frogloks will be released around 2nd May 2005, during Live Update #8. Hence, quests to open them up for players to play should soon be incorporated into the actual game. I can't say that I'm looking forward to them though. Personally I don't see what the big deal is about the frog race.
Also, I completed my very very first Heritage Quest. It awarded me a whopping 41,000 in
STATUS POINTS and bumped my guild standings up to about 1,800 or so from a measely 249, and added a whole new bub of guild experience to help move us towards level 15.
The quest of course, is "These Boots Were Made For...". Had some help with the grandfather bit in Valen's Tower, and subsequently the giant and deer hunts that followed that event. Everything else I did solo.
Now it makes me itchy to run that "Journey Is Half The Fun" quest, because that is a Heritage Quest too...
Compass with clock!
Hey hey guess what I found on
EQ2Interface.Com? Check out the link below!
CompassClock with Location, Month and DayThe neat thing is, I've always wanetd to have an in-game clock. It's kinda like a peeve with me, that I wanna know the time in-game as well as real time if possible, when I'm in a game. This is especially true in MMORPGs where sometimes the mobs spawn on a timer or only during certain times. Case in point - in Morrowind, Fargoth only goes to his hiding place at night, and I wanna know how long more I have to wait to come back and catch him in the act.
Well, now if I can only figure out how to remove the LOCATION info from the thing.. gimme some time, I'll figure it out :) Since the EQ2 UI is mostly XML files, it won't be too hard to figure out :D
The Plague (EverQuest II - News)
Heh you have seen me mention something about "The Plague" in earlier posts... well now read about it straight from Sony's website below:
EverQuest II - News
Yup, the screenshots aren't blurred. The people ARE green :)
Commonlands
You know, somehow I think that the devs of EQ2 made Freeport and the Commonlands FIRST before starting on Qeynos and Antonica.
See, yesterday I decided to go to the Commonlands via Nektulous Forest, and when I got there, I saw familiar animals like LIONS, ELEPHANTS and RHINOCEROUS. These are earthly animals, not like those on Antonica (well ok, badgers and bears are earthly). Well anyway, I honestly feel that Commonlands are very well done and Antonica not as well-done.
Currently I am level 25, with 3 City Writs under my belt and about 5000 personal status points. My contribution to the guild is 249 status points, not much if you think about it, but hey, I'm new :)
Finally the first 2 days of dearth in groups on Thundering Steppes came to an end. I got a group fairly easily, and usually after only 1 broadcast. The trick is to say I am "up for anything". Seems like people here have a phobia of getting on the bad side of the Centaurs, donno why though. I kinda learned to look the other way when they break as soon as a centaur engages them, although I still need 6 more Steelhoof Mystics for AQ6.
Anyway, by the time I am done with AQ6 I think I'll be level 28 or so, judging by the rate of how it's progressing. Then again there is a chance it won't ever be completed at all.
On another note, the plague is an irritant. Although it does nothing to the stats, it does make you go green and interrupts the fighting animations. The fight itself is not affected. Powers go off on cue, just that the animations do not follow, but get interrupted by the scratching and itching of the plague. It got so irritating that I bought a few Major Anti-Venins along just to get rid of it.
The Plague
Guess what?
I got infected. Yeah the new plague thing (an "event") just hit town and alot of people got it. The good thing is though, that for a measely 2 silvers and some coppers, a cure in the form of Major Anti-Venin can be bought from any merchant store and used. Unfortunately, it has only 2 doses so I guess you need to buy alot of them to have around if you intend to remain plague-free until the event ends.
On another note, I dinged 23 yesterday, and today I'm 2 bars away from 24. However, I still need help doing my Armour Quest 5, because the "Swarm Beetles" and the "Sabertooth Diviners" are grouped mobs and they are
TOUGH.
I hope after the shutdown tonight I can find a group and maybe get them both done. The Corpse Feeders are a pain too, although they are not grouped. The problem is, they are few and far in between, so getting them takes time.
Also, unknowingly, I completed (solo-ed) a City Writ to kill Sabertooth Scouts in the Thundering Steppes, and got about 1900 status points. That added about 65 points to the guild total :)
Ok, more to come later I guess.
Live Update 6 today
Hmmm well the servers of EQ2 are all down for "3 hours". Apparently they are pushing out "Live Update 6", with tons of fixes and hopefully, the fix for the chat boxes disappearing will be included too.
I can't tell you how annoying it is to always have to redo your chat boxes every single time you log in. Good thing I only have 2 boxes, but I know other people that have 5 or 6. Must be a royal pain to keep doing your 5 or 6 boxes each time you log in.
Well, since it's going to take at LEAST 3 hours, that means that it will be midnight before I can play again. I very much
DOUBT that I can get Armour Quest 3 done in that time. Well I could, if everyone immediately want to group up and get it done.
Well anyway, since I have 3 hours, I may as well go do my income tax thing before the deadline of April 15th.
Armour Quest 2 down!
Wow that was pretty quick. Just when I thought that I'm going to have to wait to get this done, someone broadcasted that 2 monks (actually, elven nuns) looking for more to join the quest.
Apparently, the optimum race to play a monk is an elf, seeing as both of them were high elves. Come to think of it, yeah since EQ2 places the Agility stat on the monk class, elves would be best suited for it.
Well anyway, I'm human, and I make do with what I have :) By the way, dinged 22 too in the quest. As I said to the guys in the guild before, at this rate I'd be level 30 or so (or 28 at least) by the time I get all the pieces of the armour...
Ok it's getting late, gonna have to hit the sack... more tomorrow (probably Armour Quest 3).
Armour Quest 1 done!
Well it went smoother than expected, except for the small hiccup in the form of a level 21 female elven Paladin whose every 3rd word in a sentence was a swear word.
Getting the Gnolls was the hardest part in this whole quest. The knights, the Caltorsis undead knights were pretty tough but doable... except for the dang boss man who keeps coming after us.
Well what I got were some chain wraps. Nice stats on the thing, but on-screen it looks like my hands are bare, not that I'm complaining. Maybe when I get more parts of the armour it'll start to take shape and I can at least guess what it's going to look like.
In any case, I'll get the shoulder pads tomorrow, ASSUMING, things go well.
Armour Quest 1
Like everyone else, I wanted a nice shiny set of new armour (who doesn't?). So, hearing about "Armour Quests" from players, I thought I'd go look for the NPC who gives it out.
So off I go, headed towards Qeynos Harbour where most people get their quests from. Along the way in South Qeynos, there was a halfling lady that was just standing under a tree. Since I don't remember seeing her there before, I talked to her.
Lo and behold! She was the quest-giver for light-armoured people, such as myself. So okay, need to kill clerics and gnolls, no problem.
Headed back out to Antonica (man that place is almost becoming a 2nd home to me. I swear I spend more time out there than at home back in the inn), and zoomed straight for Blackburrow. I tried to look for a group but apparently nobody was interested.
So I looked for a Sabertooth camp. Found one, engaged a group and wiped them out. Just when I was about to start on the 2nd group, I saw over the broadcast that someone was looking to kill the same things that I needed for Armour Quest. So I talked to this person and we joined up.
We were soon joined by a suicidal scout. Why suicidal? Cos everytime he pulled, there's adds. Most times we barely make it out of the encounter alive, once with just a sliver of health left. Things only looked up when we got a Cleric (Rangerfrost) and a Paladin (Timber Wolfe) into the team. From then on, nobody was even near death. At the lowest point, my health hit half, but the Cleric was there to pump it back up and the Paladin was pounding things into the ground as fast as me.
Without realising it, I dinged 21, and I still have half of my Armour Quest 1 to go! Gee... at this rate I'll be level 30 when I finally get a full set, and all mobs will be grey to me :)
I'm a Monk!!
Ok ok no jokes about Monkey..... yeah dinged 20 today, and became a full monk! Woot! Was confused about the "fun" skill we're supposed to have, the Silent Fist Kata skill. After a bit of asking around, I realised that the skill isn't automatically given like your other skills.... so, off to the city I go to look for it.
First stop, Starcrest Commune (home!). However, scribe there doesn't have it. Asked around again and was told that it's sold in Elddar Grove. Ahhh well, off I trot to Elddar Grove.
Anyway, Silent Fist Kata looks nice. Abit overdone, but nice overall. Should be a fun skill (like they said) around friends.
Ok, more next time. Now I'm off to do my Armour Quest... and see if I get a robe or some thing :)
Full Member of Erus Ex Norrath
Yay just became a full-fledged member of the guild Erus Ex Norrath!!!
Also, Grawfr and Henaz were kind enough to help me with a City Writ quest and got it done is almost no time. Too bad about the team-wipe, but heck, we got 50 points status (yeah yeah it's a pittance but every bit counts right?) for the guild...
Hopefully once I hit lvl 20 (oh yeah I dinged 19 today) it would be easier to get status points.
Woohoo!
Ok, 2 pieces of good news, well good news to me anyway.
First, met
another Singaporean player in EQ2 a couple of nights ago! Yay! Got his name down on friends list, but so far hasn't had the chance to play with him again.
How we met was really funny too. A half-elf from Freeport was trying to defect to Qeynos and was sent on a quest. She needed help, and I, with a few other players from various parts of Antonica, answered her call.
So we went along and helped her complete one part of her quest, and when it was all over, we just talked and realised that one of the party members, another half-elf, was from Singapore :)
Ok second piece of good news - just dinged 18 last night! YAY!
2 levels to 20, 1 more to 19, and hopefully go on the Monk Training quest.
On the downside... I spent all of last night solo. Couldn't find a group and well... died a few times darnit.
