Heh what else can I say? It looks good, plays good, very immersive, very addictive. I might be taking a week or so off from Norrath and hang around in Tamriel :)
Oh yeah I won't be quitting EQ2. I need to get my main up to 70! I still wanna go raiding. Alot of my raider friends have already reach 70, or nearing it. I'm still at lvl 64 heh!
But, time spent in EQ2 means time away from Oblivion, and trust me, Oblivion > EQ2 (for now at least).
Unlike most of you guys, I don't really hang out at the SOE forums too much. I only go there to look for specific things, ie I use the SEARCH function alot :)
The thing is, I still don't quite "get" the new Achievement points thing. People just say you get achievement points (from here on I'll refer to them as "AP") from doing the same stuff you have been doing all along - ie, completing quests, killing named mobs, etc. Actually, Kendricke explains it way better than I can here in this SOE Forum thread.
So, I read his post, and I now have a question - one of the line says "Completing a quest appropriate for your level". Does that mean I get no APs for quests that are blue, green, yellow, orange, and red? Do I only get APs for completing white quests?
That would really suck because sometimes you can't help but outlevel the quest while you're doing them. For example, you're a level 20. You're doing your AQs. Assuming you do get APs for completing your AQ, you would probably outlevel AQ1 when you're doing it, because let's face it - when you do AQs, you need to get a group. The group probably won't just do your AQ. They will want to grind XP (since AQs usually take place in dungeons and xp-grinding zones). Chances are you will ding during each of your AQs. Once you ding 21, your AQ1 will become BLUE.
Did you just lose your APs?
Then, I discovered something that is, to put it mildly, surprising the other day while doing lvl 55 writs in Sinking Sands. I was doing a writ for the Temple, to kill Rujarkian Spiritists near the Undercity Arena. Now, being a level 64, these guys were all GREY to me. While some of you may envy my position, being able to run around the area with impunity and without fear of ambushes, my problem is that every bloody mob looks the same to me. They all con GREY (no con colours to separate the "more dangerous" ones from the rest).
But that is beside the point. The point is, I actually levelled up in APs. Yes, I got a new achievement point! From killing greys. None of these guys are named. I have not completed the writ yet at the time (all level 55 writs need you to run back to town to hand it in before it is marked as completed). I could swear I even saw my achievement xp bar move while killing them spiritists! I know I haven't "discovered" any new areas during my mob-hunt while doing the writ since I'm basically circling the same area over and over waiting for them to respawn, so the APs couldn't have come from there. The loot they drop are the usual vendor fodder stuff, or ears and eyes and stuff for Orc L&L.
Going by the forum post listed above, my situation fits nowhere in that profile.
Well maybe just 1, and that's iffy. I did get some status loot, you know, those Indocite Relic, Ruby Scrying Stone things which you need to turn in back in town to the correct faction? I only got like 4 or 5 of them, so I highly doubt that would be enough to level me in AP.
Then there's the other thing that kind of makes it hard for me to choose my path down the line. As a monk, I should go for STR and AGI (the 2 primary traits). However, the paths down those 2 lines have abilities which require me to be either bare-fisted (no bo staff, no knuckles, no cestii, no cestu etc) which I hate, or to be equipped with Dual-Wield staves (fighting batons, quarterstaves). Incidentally, the "fighting batons" is called a tonfa in the martial arts world.
My weapon of choice is the ebony bo staff. First, it's "cheaper" since I only need 1 weapon, and it cost me 2 plats to make. It's sold on the broker for 5 plats, ready-made. If I were to equip myself with 2 fighting batons (one in each hand), I would need to spend double the amount. The total stats from the 2 batons would be exactly equal to the stats given by the ebony bo staff (I know, I have already compared them). The only upside to equipping dual-wield weapons such as the fighting batons, is that the delay is shorter (1.6 seconds compared to 2.5 seconds). But, since the damage from the batons is exactly half that of the bo staff, I still hit for the same amount of damage in 2.5 seconds as you will in 3.2 seconds (1.6 x 2 for both hands).
So, the STR line requires me to be bare-fisted (maybe fist wraps don't count?). The AGI line requires me to have dual-wield weapons. Only the WIS line has an ability that makes use of my bo staff - an ability to strike all mobs in melee range with a 2-handed staff. Everyone knows we don't have enough APs to go down 3 lines! In fact I don't even think I will ever manage to get enough APs to completely max out one line - my AGI line.
Frankly I have yet to see a monk with any sort of Wisdom resembling "decent". My own Wisdom is pathetically poor at around 124. Yeah I know, my resists suck. That's what jewelry is for - to up my resists :) BTW, resists play a major role if you raid alot. Many strategies and techniques for taking down mobs require you to have a high enough resist to counter the mobs' AOEs, and that is especially true for melee class like me. Rangers and other scout classes can back off out of AOE range and just pummel the mob with arrows. We can't. We're melee class.
No, the itty bitty shurikens don't count :)
By the way, any of you guys actually bothered to buy/make legendary ranged ammo like maybe cobalt arrows / throwing hammers / throwing knives / shurikens? I personally still use iron shurikens on my lvl 64 main. Since I use them only to pull, not to damage the mobs, it makes sense to get the cheapest available. They are only like 5 coppers each, and I carry about 1,400 of them on me at any one time.
That means I'm useless in a raid when not in melee range though.
Yeah I did that today in Maj'Dul. I had already dinged 64 from doing a whole load of quests in Bonemire, and here's the customary ding picture on the right. Actually what happened was kinda weird.
I was just trying to get the 3rd Heritage Quest which my guildies told me was in Bonemire. So I looked it up on Ogaming, and found out roughly how to go about it. So I headed to Bonemire, and, as usual, I got sidetracked by NPCs with feathers on their heads :) I mean, when I see one of them I'd go "Ooooohhhh quest!" and I'd start talking to them.
So anyway, I got some easy quests out of the way. Then, while hunting for a ding-spot for one of those quests, I came across a gnome being attacked by Droags. I remember from reading OGaming that this was indeed the Heritage Quest starter. So I saved his sorry behind, and got started on it. Now, seeing that the heritage quest steps seem easy, I proceeded to do them. I figure that I'd quit as soon as I come across a step that absolutely needs a group to do (like the hat quest - I need a group to get the scrollbearer). Anyway long story short - I now need a group to kill a dragon that flies around the Hall Of Fate. After that, it's just returning to the gnome to get the reward and I'll be done with the heritage :)
So anyway, I decided to go back to Barren Sky since I have run out of quests to do (ie, quest that I COULD do solo). Once I zoned into Barren Sky (I refuse to use the acronym 'BS' for this zone!) I spied some mobs which my writ needed. So I killed them. Lo and Behold - ding 64!
As per routine, once I dinged I will usually head back to town, to get new spells, the check on the bank for any goodies I might have stored there to await the day I when I grow strong enough to use etc. So this one time, I got lazy and decided to zone into Maj'Dul instead of Qeynos. After all, I can sell all the status loot of the various faction to just ONE guy, and I don't need to run around, plus the bank is there too, all in the Court Of Blades.
While traversing through Maj'Dul, I got too close to some Coins Guards. So they attacked me. Naturally I wiped the floor with them, and was surprised they dinged some long-forgotten quest of mine. So, I realised I need to kill 15 of these guys, plus there's a quest to kill a Coins Captain too... and I'm just outside a Coins tower... so why the heck not?
So I worked my way up... killing 15 coins to satisfy quest number 1. Then, I just ran all the way up to the top of the tower (to get to the captain) and feigned death. That resetted all the guards who had chased me up. Then, I took my time picking off the final few guards right at the top of the tower, and eventually killing the captain and turning the tower into a Blades Tower by plunging a dagger into the heart of the Coins Captain.
So, ding quest number 2 - now I just need to do the same thing to a Truth captain heh! Since my technique has been tried and proven, I guess I can solo a Truth tower tomorrow ....
Heh ok there's isn't gonna be an in-world post today. Just wanted to take a little "OOC time" here to say that I uploaded 2 of my videos to youtube.com, and I am embedding one of them here:
Well you need Flash 8 to see it so if you can't see it, go get Flash :) The full list of my videos have always been available from the sidebar on the right side of the blog, but I doubt many people would have clicked on them.
If you want to view online but not download my videos, here's the link to my youtube.com profile... you might just find what you're looking for there.
I will find time in the days to come to completely upload all my movies to Youtube.com. The problem is that it takes a damn long time to upload to them. It's like I'm only uploading at 2400bps, that's like how slow it is for me heh!
Marid was online and itching to do something today when I got on. Helped me with the Burglars Afoot quest too, with killing a gnoll. A level 60^^^ gnoll. One that knocks you WAY back. Off the island even.
And in Overrealm, we all know what happens if we fall off the island, don't we? Oh yeah... we spend money. Why? To repair the armour. Why would armour need to be repaired if we fell off the island?
Because we die :)
Well at least there aren't shard runs anymore. I have always hated shard runs, and I was so glad when EQ2 finally got rid of them.
But, I digress. We looked for the gnoll on Vicious Breeding Grounds island, and he did knock me way back and almost off the island too, but thanks to EQ2's freaky physics engine (or lack thereof), I was able to steer myself back onto the very edge of the island when I landed, and didn't fall off. For a level 60^^^ he sure packs a mean wallop!
However, since Marid was lvl 66, Frippy (the gnoll) was probably green to him. Well, the fight didn't go on too long and I got the quest update. Then, Angel finished with trying to sneak into Freeport to get her Reaching Blade Of The Assassin quest done (see my previous post on this). Needless to say, she was miffed. Angry. Like "hall hath no fury" kind of angry.
Yeah there was a level 66^^^ guard in her way apparently. Was a new guard, probably, since I don't remember ever having a guard between the sewer entrance and the tavern, to talk to the guy there. Carrieann had to sacrifice herself (she's a Bruiser and she's from Freeport) by throwing shurikens at the guard and running like heck, so that Angel could slip past him while Carrie got chased by the guard. Would have worked too, but she's a gnome.. and we all know gnomes have short legs.... so...
Anyway, Angel eventually got her update, and came out to Barren Sky with me and Marid. We were headed for an instance called "The Nest" (I forget the full name. Everyone just calls it The Nest around here). We weren't doing any questing, mainly just XP'ing. Well at least I was. We did pretty good too, going about mid-way into the zone before 2 more people joined us. After they did, we felt confident enough to attempt to complete the instance.
It was only after I have completed the instance that someone said that they finally got the update for yet another quest (which I have, too) by killing the required mob within The Nest. I am still not up to the same step he was in the quest, darnit!
Ah well, time to go get myself up to the same step, and hope they'll decide to run through The Nest again tomorrow...
Cool looking armour huh? Well at least something in tier 7 looks nice. Much better than my dragonhide armour anyways.
All your pallys, zerkers, guardians, templars, inquisitors etc, if I were you I'd start digging all them ores and stones lying all over the Overrealm to get my hands on some Xegonite, and then seeking out your local armourer, to make a set of this baby!
Going by broker pricing, this set would probably have cost him about 36 to 42 plats, depending on what time of the day it is. Then again, I don't play a plate tank as my main, so my prices could be wrong. My only plate-tank is only level 30, and currently only wearing feyiron (poor me) armour. Long ways to go!
Anyway I was fortunate enough to get into a Sanctum Of The Scale xp group earlier today. After much mucking around, and completing some quests which I found inside there, I dinged level 63. Yay me!
Yup, it was actually pretty fortunate that I saw Pomma's "XP group looking for more" in the The Alliance chat channel. What is The Alliance? It started out as a coalition of smaller guilds that wished to band together to raid the high level content. After much drama, politics and turmoil, it split asunder and reformed as The Alliance and now things are much better. We also tend to group together outside of raids too. Since KoS is new, there aren't many level 70s yet. Look at me, I am only level 63! My excuse is of course, I started late :)
I also soon started to realise that I am finally outgrowing Tenebrous Tangle. FINALLY! Well, there are some islands in Tenebrous Tangle that are still tough for me, but the majority of the quests (that I have found anyway) are done, and there isn't much more I can do in TT. So, I sucked it up and ventured into Barren Sky.
I also remember somebody saying something about a "class hat quest". They further tell me the NPC that starts it all off is some bird on a chain. Well, I kinda found him on Strifewind Island, but getting up the chain was a PAIN! I had to fly down to Isle of Discord, and start climbing up from there. Eventually I met up with the guy, a Hoo'Luh (yet another bird). The quest he gave me was marked "Signature Quest"... OoOoOh! Something cool, I bet.
I have seen some guys running around with wolf headpieces (shamans) in earlier raids. Never actually asked them where they got it, but I guess now I know where. There is a slight problem though - OGaming hasn't quite caught up with KoS yet. Alot of the quests that I have done in Barren Sky aren't even in the database yet, so I can't really rely on it for walkthroughs. It would be nice to know what exactly I have to do to complete the "Class-Hat Quests" though. I wonder what the "hat" for monks look like...
Well I couldn't resist the urge to go shopping. I have no idea why.
So, I splurged 12 plats on dragonhide armour. One for the Chest, one for the legs. So, I'm poor again. Only have abit under 4 plats to my name now.
The weird part about T7 gear is that they either are imbued, and give you no resists, or non-imbued, but with pretty good resists. I picked the non-imbued version for the pants, because I didn't really want my pants to attack mobs when I'm trying to run away from them :)
Also, non-imbued pants seem to have better stats that the imbued one. Case in point - STR and AGI. Imbued pants have 18 STR and 18 AGI, whereas non-imbued pants have 20 STR and 20 AGI. The non-imbued version seems a little more "brownish" than the imbued version. Anyway I stuck with an imbued tunic because having it heal me for 74 each tick is better than zero heals. Sometimes, that 74 heal is the difference between running away screaming like a little schoolgirl, or heroically taking a dirtnap...
Incidentally, after swapping out my T6 armour for the new T7 ones, I realise I have only 20 INT... I'm so dumb, an ogre would probably be smarter...
Yeah seems like now T7 gear are very skimpy on "opposing" atttributes. For example if your gear is high in INT and WIS, it'll be low or none, on STR and STA, and vice verssa. Hence, now my monk is so dumb, he's a wise dumb guy... strong, agile and wise, but dumb.
A pleasant, although not unexpected, surprise awaited me when I logged on today. The Woodworker I had hired, has finished making my order.
My "You've got mail" icon beeped at me the moment I logged on. So, I opened the letter from her, and was actually surprised to discover that the bo staff I ordered was actually a Server First! I own the first, and probably the only one, imbued ebony bo staff.
The bo staff is a beauty I tell you. Ahhh *sigh*. Then it made me wonder why SOE decided to "devalue" the player-crafted rare weapons? As you can see from the picture, it is now listed as TREASURED instead of "Legendary" as it had always been in previous tiers. Anyway, I checked to see the delay on this bo staff - yes, 2.5 seconds, as noted in a previous entry. Seems like now all bo staves will be 2.5 seconds delay, instead of 1.7. Hence I cannot use the delay to judge if a named staff on the broker is a bo-staff or a regular staff (with a big ball at the top to crush enemies). Why am I even bringing this up? Because there is a Staff of Enlightenment on sale at the brokers for only a little more than 11 gold. And, it's legendary....
Molokan happened to get online and wanted to get an XP group together. I went along. Why not, since I'm just starting into 62, and could use all the XP I can get. We did pretty good, got the necessary nameds for the guys who needed them, and then, it was 3am.. I should log off and go to bed eh?
If I were sane, I'd be out trying to level up. I am not sane :)
I just noticed that my Safe Fall skill is starting to lag behind, so I thought I'd make a quick trip to the local Mage Academy and start jumping off floors. It's kinda like bungee jumping... minus the bungie.
I noticed that I was skilling up pretty slowly jumping from the blue portal. I used this portal to get from about 220 up to 300 where it maxxed out at level 60. So I thought, maybe I should go abit higher to the red portal, and see if I survive it?
Sure enough, I survived the fall from the red portal! The even better news is, Safe Fall started to proc and skill up. Soon I got it to 310, which is my current max.
Leaving the Academy, I headed to North Qeynos. I had gotten a funny map and an orb, both marked LORE. Guildies said to seek out someone called "HighKeep" in Irontoes East Inn. Since I'm headed to North Qeynos anyway to get a batch of new writs, I popped by Irontoes East.
The man I am looking for knew me on sight and promptly gave me a secret mission! YES! I AM FINALLY A SPY! Look out James Bond! Of course I asked him if I was licensed to kill. After all, what's a spy if he can't kill?
Anyway, soon after I headed back to Tenebrous Tangle where I was to meet that Jabber bird again. He was also damn coy about telling me where to go to find Muarr Sharr (I think that's his name). Of course, he doesn't know I already know where Hidden Refuge is, and I have already seen Muarr at the Qeynosian encampment there. Jabber felt all-important about not telling me exactly where Hidden Refuge is, asking me to "take a leap of faith". Yeah right.
Since I had some outstanding gathering quests for the Surgeon froglok down there, I hung around and looked for roots and flowers (geesh a grown man picking flowers? Hope nobody I know sees me). Then someone mentioned over the OOC channel that the basket quests that Galump liked (the froglok up at the Temple Grounds) are repeatable. Yay! They give good money, almost 10 gold each time! So off I went looking for baskets and filling them up. When I was all done with baskets and flowers (no, those damn Life Roots are too rare. Managed to find only ONE in all the time I finished collecting 14 flowers!), I headed down into the Hidden Refuge. Turning in those gathering quests finally dinged me 62... yes!!
So I met up with Muarr, and went snooping around the Droag towers there. Found a note telling me to go talk to the Herald of Dar. Well, he didn't really want to talk. He kinda reminds me of The Thing from Fantastic 4 - "It's clobberin' time!". It was. He got clobbered. By me. HAH!
Then, now I need to find this Soundless Guardian. Damn, I swear I had seen him once before on the first day I stepped into Tenebrous Tangle. Now when I need him, he's nowhere to be found. Typical.
Since I am now level 62, I can finally use alot more of those tier-7 gear. I will have to wait for tier-7 bo staff to be ready, though. I found a level 70 woodworker and she charged me only 50 gold to make it. Cool beans! I save a whopping 3 plats compared to if I were to buy the same thing ready-made. I bought the ebony for about 1.2plats, and the imbue ingredient for like 6 gold. Add another 50 gold in, for hiring the services of a level 70 Woodworker, it's under 2 plats total to make. And yet, the same thing on broker is going for 5 plats.
Here's hoping that when I log in tomorrow that I get my bo staff :)
For some strange reason, the "repeatable quests" from the Armourer froglok no longer repeats. Tonight, after I had completed a batch of these same quests for him, he no longer offers me those same quests again.
The same thing happened to the Lady Erollisi NPC too. After killing numerious Scaleborn Stonesetters and Sentries, she no longer offers the same quest again to me. The "repeatble quests" have suddenly stopped repeating!
I checked my faction with the frogloks. I have about 45,000 faction points with them, and am currently at "ally" status with them. I wonder if this could be the reason.
Anyway, since the repeatable quests have stopped repeating (except for those from the Surgeon and Archeologist frogloks, both collection-type quests... ugh!) I decided to turn my attention to a quest which I had gotten from the first day I stepped into Tenebrous Tangle but never really worked on it - the one from this guy called Spearhead. He's a dark-skinned, heavily-tattooed Barbarian. He looks NOTHING like a spearhead at all. He's at a camp there in Hidden Refuge, along with another familiar name - Dancer. I met her when I was a wee little level 16 brawler (Brawlers no longer exist. We get to pick a final class right off the boat now) running through Antonica.
Dancer didn't say much though, just "hello".
So anyway, I started to work on the quests from Spearhead. He really got me running ALL OVER the whole zone. I had to take flying clouds to a number of places just to find his stuff, and once, I even had to ding-dong back and forth between the main island and Gazer Island. Soon, 4 hours passed and I had gotten some pretty decent xps from running around and killing stuff.
Spearhead's quests aren't over yet. I logged out with probably the final one to do in his series before he hands me off to someone (or something) else. Also, I am now 14% from level 62. Not too bad if I may say so myself. I should be able to ding 62 tomorrow with some luck.
I got to level 61 without much problems. Right after the guild meeting too. At this time, I'm actually almost 50% into 61.
I have always been grinding writs. In the past, I used to do only writs for the Qeynos Guards, simply because I'm a fighter class, so logically I should be doing writs for them. However (too late it seems) I realised that the title I really want for Chen was "Disciple" or "Initiate", and those only come from the Priests, not fighters.
So, I had to start all over again with the Qeynos Temple, grinding writ after writ with them. When I was level 60, it was just about the only thing I could do other than raiding. Anyway, I checked out the new level 60+ writs, and at my current level I figure I can only do the first one offered to me - killing Scaleborn Sentries. Heck, that's what I'm doing now anyway, to gain faction with the frogloks below in the Hidden Refuge island. I have no idea what sort of goodies the frogloks will give me, but hey, if I can gain faction and gain xp while doing it, why not?
Add to that, the writs now ask for the same mobs I have been killing ANYWAY, so why the heck not? It sure is a pain to be only gaining 150 faction per solo writ though. The status they give is pretty impressive now though - over 6K status per writ, and about 200 contributed (to the guild). It is a personal goal of mine that I want to break the 100,000 contributed status in my guild. So far I am the only one into 90K contributed status. Next closest guy is Pagan, with about 75K or so.
I have had some quick sorties into the Barren Sky zone, designated for lvl 65+ players. There are a few quests in there that I could manage at 60 and 61 though. Some of the quests require me to kill level 63^^s and level 64^s. Those I can BARELY do solo. It was then that I realised the nerfs were indeed having an effect.
I also noticed something really weird with T7 weapons. For example, the player-crafted rosewood bo staff shows a delay of 2.5 seconds instead of the usual 1.7 seconds for all previous tiers of bo staves. Comparing another staff which I have, the Staff Of Arresting, the icon looked like a quarterstaff, and it also has the same delay - 2.5 seconds. Eventually I decided to equip the Staff of Arresting and gave it a shot. Well, it worked pretty well, although now I don't have a 5% chance to proc extra damage via Gleaming Strike anymore.
I wonder if I should spring for the Staff of Enlightenment (or something like that). It's a T7 legendary staff, with an icon of a staff, not a bo staff. The delay is still 2.5 seconds, but it was on the broker for only like 10 gold. I was thinking I might buy it first and then store it till I hit level 66. Then again, I could just harvest trees I come across and hope I get a rare drop. I think the rare wood for T7 is called "severed ebony" but I am not sure.
Chen himself is only a level 42 woodworker. I wish I could really motivate myself to go level up in crafting so I can make my own weapons. This was the chief reason I chose Woodworking in crafting in the first place - cos I wanted to make my own weapons. I might just finally give myself the reason to do so. First I need to find a piece of ebony. Then I need to know what is the ingredient to imbue it with (Glowing, Sparkling you know, those terms). I need to know what to look out for when I dig around stones and rocks. If I do manage to find an ebony and the imbue ingredient before I get to level 69 crafting (HAH!), I'd probably make the staff myself.
If not, ah well... time to look for a lvl 70 woodworker. There SHOULD be some around in League Of Luck or in The Alliance...
Honestly I haven't gone much further than Tenebrous Tangle in the new zones. Just doing the quests for the frogs (between lvl 55 to 60) had been enough to bring me from lvl 60 to 75% into 60. I forsee myself getting to level 61 in the next day or so.
One thing I have found is that I look like some Chinese mythology god when riding on the cloud to get between the isle. Don't believe me? Take a look:
If they'd just retain the bo staff I had on my back when I took the cloud to travel between the isles, I look like the Monkey God (Sun Wu Kong, or孫悟空 in Chinese Characters) from the Chinese epic "Journey To The West" (Xi Yu Ji, or 西遊記 in Chinese Characters). If only they'd retain the bo staff when we get onto the cloud and started flying. That'd be almost the exact image we see from all the illustrations as well as some movies that have been made about 西遊記.
In a way, I sometimes wish I could duplicate myself to take on the slightly-harder mobs that appear in these new zones. For example, I used to be able to take on 2 x lvl 60 double up mobs without much problems. Now, I fight to stay alive with just 1 x lvl 60 single up mob. At first I thought the monk class had been nerfed, but a fellow guildie suggested it would probably be more likely that I was still using my T6 gear and haven't upgraded to T7 gear.
Another thing I have gleaned from my guildies is that apparently, T7 crafted items no longer are "Legendary" even when using "rare" components. Everything is now labelled "Treasured". To get Legendary or Fabled items, we have to find them on mob drops. I don't know what to think of that. I find it such a let-down that no longer can we search for T7 gear using the broker drop-down box and selecting "Legendary" in the Tier selection.
Heck I don't even know if any rares will drop from harvesting nodes! What I did find amusing was that I was able to harvest "loam" from stones in Tenebrous Tangle. We used to produce loam very effortlessly from making subcombines of inks (the DYE stage). Plus, I haven't been crafting since LU 19 and 20, so I don't really know how much crafting have been changed. They keep saying that no longer do we have to do sub-components, but a recent examination of the recipe books still show that I need to make Quills and Staves for some of the items.
I'd say that I still have more to find out and discover with the new expansion pack. At this moment though, I am glad to say that it has been pretty easy getting 75% xp into 60, and soon I should be lvl 61 in a day or so. In the meantime, I find myself killing alot of those "Scaleborn" mobs that many quests from the Frogloks seem to require. Man, I should start looking for the Lore and Legend quest to them, as well as the language quest for their language - Volant.
I need to examine every drop I get from those lizards and see which are the ones that trigger the language quest.
I'm having a blast running through the Dragon Isles. The old feeling of "I need to complete one more quest" is back. With my limited time yesterday, I was able to add about 1.5 bubbles to my level 60 rank. 1.5 bubbles is 15% xp (Yeah I still think in terms of bubbles. It's an old habit brought over from City of Heroes).
The installation of KoS used up 4 CDs. As I said, the KoS box came with 9 CDs, but only 4 were used. I wonder what the remainder of the 5 CDs were for? There were hints from the "manual" that came with the KoS box that it will prompt me to install Everquest 2 if I don't already have it installed on my PC. To me that is really weird because - why would I even buy an expansion if I didn't already have the original game? On the other hand, that makes me feel cheated too - I should have saved $80 or so last year, waited a full year, buy KOS and then get EQ2 free.
Anyway, I was expecting Marid to be near 70 now, but the dark horse in the guild is actually Khofoo. He's level 67 or 68 when I logged off before the servers shut down for maintainence last night (that would be morning US time). Marid, as noted in a previous entry, is still currently level 63 or so.
Anyway, here's a screenie of me battling some bug:
It was funny to survive all the fighting and then to die from a fall off the edge of one of these floating isles. Looks like 300 skill points in Safe Fall isn't going to be enough heheh!
It would be fun to run around here with a healer. Or Brenu. Or Ufoog. Or Carrie. Well Brenu won't be around anymore. He's sold off everything, and donated all his money to the guild. Yup, he's quitting the game for good, and no, we "can't have his stuff (tm)". That's too bad (about him quitting). Now who's gonna make me my adept 3s??
Strange to say, I haven't seen Angel online the past couple of days too. She must be hiding somewhere in the Australian outback or something, cos if I know her, she wouldn't stay away that long. Anyway I should get her into a group or something because she's a healer, and we need healers to go XPing...
I had a nice surprise today. At precisely 1245 hours (that's 12.45 pm), there was a knock on the door. It was the UPS guy. Kingdom of Sky has arrived!
So anyway, I ripped open the package, and lo and behold - 9 CDs. Hmmm why couldn't SOE have just shipped it on a DVD?
That also kinda reminds me - Wasn't the original Everquest 2 also 9 CDs? What, is the expansion so vast that it requires me to install 9 CDs worth of stuff?
I'm so very tempted to just enter the CD-key into my station account and see if it "auto-activates" itself, ie I already have the necessary files on my HD, I just need the key to activate it?
Naw, I think I'll go through the whole process and insert 9 CDs into my drive and see how it goes. For all I know, I might have a big chunk of KoS missing from my system, and going through the whole process might be the better idea.
I looked through the "manual" that came with the KoS boxed set. It's more like a pamphlet, and it only tells you how to install the expansion, as well as which keys the game uses (not too many). To me, it's practically useless. The map that came in the box, however, was pretty cool. I have a quick overview of the new lvl 70 zones and they sound pretty mean right now.
Why am I still here? Damn, I should be installing KoS right now! See ya!
I logged on back onto EQ2 today for a meeting. Right after the meeting, a call went out over the raid channel for members to join an upcoming raid. Since I wasn't doing anything, I met up with them over at Sinking Sands docks. As the raid got set up, I quickly realise that I was one of the few guys that was still level 60. I felt like such a lowbie again.
After about an hour of hanging around we finally got underway. It was surprising to see a fellow guildie, Marid, in the raid too. He is already level 68 in trade skills, but surprisingly he was still level 63 in Adventure. Anyway, we headed for Lockjaw's Lair. seeing that everyone else was above level 60, I half expected that we would soundly thrash Lockjaw. However, it was him that gave us a sound thrashing. After a little bit more juggling around, moving tanks and healers around the groups, we eventually got him.
I didn't mind dying that much since I'm still stuck at level 60. I don't get any XP, just debts. Even those will go away with time. I hope that will change this Saturday when the expansion will arrive on my doorstep if everything goes to plan. I can foresee myself locking myself in the room and just grinding XP trying to catch up with the rest of the guys once I get the expansion installed into my computer. I hope it won't be too long because people like Marid are already almost level 70, albeit in trade skills.
Then there is the whole business with the achievement points. At this moment, I have no clue what I need to do to get them. People have been telling me that I should just do what I have always done, that is, do quests, discover a new locations, and kill some named mobs. That is easier said than done because I need to know which quests actually give the achievement points. I can also run around all the lowbie areas again and discover the locations all over again to get the achievement points.
I hope the expansion pack will come with a manual that tells me exactly how to get achievement points. If that fails I can always turn to the forums. It might take a bit of searching but I am sure the information will be there.
Here's an update on the Kingdom Of Sky situation in Singapore - we're not getting it, period.
Oh yeah, demand is too low. Supply won't supply. Thank you, WoW players of Singapore.
Since I'm still hell-bent on getting my boxed set (not because of the plant. My house in Qeynos is FULL and I probably should have moved out of my 5-silvers-a-week place a long time ago), I went around all the online game shops on the Internet and looked for the best deals. Now, what kind of shopping can I do since games generally cost the same everywhere? The answer is simple - Shipping.
Woe is me who lives on the other side of the planet from the USA. Shipping alone usually kills me. Best I could find was at Gamestop, where the shipping costs are US$24.99. Everywhere else I have been to cost more for shipping. So, it's like paying for 2 games but getting only 1 delivered to me.
This is also the most expensive expansion I have ever purchased.
Now, I have to wait "3-5 business days" to get it.. that means NEXT SATURDAY Singapore time, to get the expansion. One more week of running around stuck at level 60. By then my guildies would be about level 65-68. Maybe Marid might even be 69, he's a hardcore xp'er.
And me? I'd just be starting to add bubbles to my level 60 self... :(
By the way, why do they call it "SHIPPING" when they are sending it by air? heheheh!
You know, it's kinda depressing when you're running around Norrath stuck at level 60 when you see all your friends now at level 63, 64, 65 etc.
I have not given in to temptation to get the digital download version of Kingdom of Sky yet, but I'm getting there. Gimme a few more days of "Not In Singaopore Yet", and I'll probably break under the pressure.
One thing I have noticed is that the legendary rings you wear have been nerfed. In the past, in addition to the stats they give you, you could "activate" them and get the benefits of more agility, more wisdom, or more strength, depending on which rings you get. However, now the rings only have a 3% chance of "activating" when you manage to hit the enemy. So, now I have to hope and pray that the rings will "activate" whenever I hit the mob, and in the meantime watch my health go down while desperately praying for the rings to proc.
Then of course, there is the matter of city guards. I logged on to my "evil" alt, the Fury which I have in Freeport. Specifically, I went to North Freeport, West Freeport et al, to places where we need to "sneak" in, in the past, to get various HQs done up.
Now what I found is that, for example, Sony has placed 2 level 50 gargoyles and a level 55 ratonga at the mage academy right at the entrance. Not only that, the usual guard, Ulla I believe her name is, has been upped from a mid-30's guard to a level 46 guard. Now, I don't really remember what her old level was, since she had always been grey to me, but now she's GREEN to my level 53 Fury. GREEN!!!
Now how the hell do you expect Qeynosians to sneak into the Mage Academy to get the dragon runes for the prismatic quests?? First they have to handle 2 x level 50 gargoyles, triple up. Assuming they survive (unlikely), they have to tangle with the level 55 ratonga. Although the ratonga is sited in a particular way that allows you the possibility of SNEAKING past him, you can't possibly sneak past the 2 x level 50^^^ gargoyles. That kinda means that if you were to try to sneak into the Mage Academy to get the dragon runes, you'd have to be at least a level 60 person to do it (fighter class), or a level 50 Wizard/Warlock class. There is no way that I can see, to sneak past the gargoyles. You WILL definitely get into a fight with them.
That also means that we now have even more problems trying to complete the Stein Of Moggok Heritage Quests, as well as the Reaching Blade Of The Assassin. In the past, if we got caught, we were merely thrown out into Commonlands. Now, if we get caught, we could be DEAD.
Especially with this guy around (see pic below):
Yup. You got it... level 68 guard. Epic x 4 too. Now you tell me, how the heck can a Qeynosian level 45 or so, get past him? That would be the normal level for when you want to sneak in and get the Dragon Runes or the Stein Of Moggok quests done. If you wanted to do the Reaching Blade Of The Assassin done, your level would be probably around level 35-ish.
Oh yeah, you're screwed. I'm just waiting for my lowbie guildies to scream HEEEELP! in the guild chat for when they need to get these quests done. It'll probably be like a raid, where we have to mobilise all the high levels just to help the level 35-level 45 guy complete the Heritage Quests.
