Life in Qeynos

The Journey Continues..

2006-06-27T09:12:00.001+08:00

For anybody who may be interested, since I have cancelled my EQ2 account, this blog is no longer updated. Well, at least not "regularly". However I feel that starting a new blog for every new game I get into (now, or in the future) is kinda wasteful.

Thus, I have decided to resurrect an old blog of mine, a generic gaming blog which I will probably use from now on. It is now renamed to Shades of Twilight (from an orignally unimaginative name). Please excuse the mess there as I also have recently changed templates and haven't gotten around to "prettying it up" yet.

As far as Everquest 2 goes though, I have currently no plans to go back to it.

Look Over Here! Part 2

2006-06-13T09:54:00.000+08:00

I have cancelled my account. It has been months since I have been back in Norrath, and thus I decided I wasn't going to keep paying to keep my account alive thinking that "I'll be back soon".

Work and real life got in the way. Work has become hectic and required longer working hours than usual. Even when I do get home, the urge and drive is all gone from grinding. It has become a chore.

Good news is, though, that MTV somehow noticed one of my EQ2 vids and are talking to me about airing Look Over Here which is very flattering. Never thought something silly I did back in Sept '05 could get noticed :)

On Vacation

2006-03-25T12:38:00.000+08:00

Oblivion.

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).

Achievement Points System - Confusing?

2006-03-22T10:08:00.000+08:00

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.

Soloing Towers In Maj'Dul

2006-03-21T05:32:00.000+08:00

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 ....

Embedded Movies

2006-03-20T02:00:00.000+08:00

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!

Of Guards, Heritages and Eggs

2006-03-19T05:59:00.000+08:00

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...

Xegonite Armour Looks Cool

2006-03-18T04:58:00.000+08:00

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...

Poorer And Dumber

2006-03-17T05:03:00.000+08:00

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.

First Ever Huh?

2006-03-16T02:54:00.000+08:00

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?

Yeah right...

Practice Makes Perfect!

2006-03-15T03:39:00.000+08:00

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 :)

Spearheading The Exploration

2006-03-14T03:58:00.000+08:00

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.

Tags: Everquest 2, Kingdom of Sky, quests, MMORPG, Online Game, Gaming

Grinding Writs

2006-03-13T06:59:00.000+08:00

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...

Lots Of Scaly Mobs

2006-03-11T03:20:00.000+08:00

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.

Technorati tags: Everquest 2, Kingdom Of Sky

On Cloud Nine

2006-03-10T10:14:00.000+08:00

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...

Ascending To The Sky

2006-03-09T13:34:00.000+08:00

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!

Being The Lowbie Again

2006-03-08T14:24:00.000+08:00

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.

Demanding Kingdom Of Sky

2006-03-04T13:59:00.000+08:00

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!

Nerfs Nerfs And More Nerfs

2006-03-03T07:38:00.000+08:00

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.

Interesting Bits

2006-02-27T22:30:00.000+08:00

Ok, I learnt something recently. The city of "Qeynos" is actually SonyEQ backwards! Man, how could I have missed that? Most times I find myself, when confronted with players with weird names, to reverse their names and see what they actually mean.

And I thought I got pretty good at it. But, I missed this one.

Here's another interesting bit for all you guys who already have KoS, or planning to get it (*sniff sniff* I'm about to break down and get the digital download version myself dammit) from Henaz, a fellow guildie:

What's worst, I claimed the gate replica from the gnome before I got KoS, and I simply got the item and the adv exp. (it's a quest completion that's at par with your current adventure level). However, the next day when Annettia got the replica after having KoS, she also got an Achievement point together with the rest of the normal exp. SOE is kind enough to enable our old toons to get all the exp from visiting POIs, but each of them will give out only 1% of a full Acheivement point! So I've missed out on a full achievement point worth 100 POIs!!

So, DO NOT get the gate replica until you have KoS installed and activated, or you'll miss out on 1 full Achievement point! (Well, not that tough to do white color quests for people who play in groups or raids, but for soloers, it's tough!)

Note - Henaz is a swashbuckler. High DPS, lousy tank. *evil grin*

Got that? Don't claim your... err... whatever it is, till you get KoS installed and running!

Now, apparently there are new "location xps" too, and they too are keyed into the KoS expansion. So, don't go running around getting dings from tourism, until you get KoS too.

Damn, makes a grown man really wanna cry. I want my KoS now!!! *stamp feet*

I Need To Kill Somebody!

2006-02-25T07:14:00.000+08:00

Ok, first of all, Kingdom of Sky is out for Everquest 2, but you already know that.

I don't have it.

It's not that I don't want it - I wannit I wannit gimme gimme gimme!

But, I can't have it. No way jose! Well, the trouble is, maybe SOE underestimated the demand or something, but NONE, NOT ONE, the local gaming shops has it. Not a single one. Nada. I asked when they might be able to get it in. Best answer I got was - "maybe in 2 weeks".

2 friggin' weeks! Half my guild will be level 65 by then! And when I finally get KoS, and start to level up, they'd be 70.... and raiding T7 stuff! I'll still be stuck doing T6 stuff!

Oh yeah, blame the Americans why don't you. "Something screwed up" they said. "Singapore is not on the list" they said.

Aww come on, I know alotta guys play World of Warcraft, but we have die-hard EQ2 players here too! How about ordering "special orders" or something?

Guildies of course, tried to be helpful. "Pre-Order!" they told me a few weeks ago. "Get the download version off the Station account". Call me old-fashioned but I want the CD (or DVD) in my grubby little hands, for times when, God forbid, my computer crashes and I need to reinstall everything all over again. I am so not looking forward to re-downloading KOS for 2 hours over the Internet!

Gaaaggghhhh!!! I need to kill somebody, and I don't mean city guards!

Kill On Sight!

2006-02-24T17:22:00.000+08:00

In Everquest 2, I learnt a new acronym - KOS.

It means - "Kill On Sight". Most times it's referring to mobs, ie if they hate you (ie you have a bad faction with them), you're KOS to them. That means they will attack you on sight. This acronym only applies to mobs that do not necessarily kill everyone on sight, only those with a bad faction to them.

An example would be the centaurs in Thundering Steppes. When you're a lowbie level 20 running around there, and you kill some centaurs due to a quest (or just for fun), your faction with them gets a hit. Once you have killed enough centaurs to make them hate you, you are KOS to them, and they will then become aggro to you.

So it was with some amusement that players now refer to the new expansion Kingdom Of Sky as "KOS". At least Desert Of Flames (prevoius expansion) was called DoF, which does not share any acronyms with anything else, so it's unique.

Speaking of expansions, I am going out to try to buy Kingdom of Sky from Tecdrome later. I hope I can get it, and then I can install it and get back into EQ2 and start levelling up to 70. Killing guards is fun for awhile but eventually you will get bored and want to do something else.

Take That, City Guards!

2006-02-24T04:46:00.000+08:00

HAH! I finally managed to log in to EQ2. First thing I did was to look for a guard and cause him some hurt! What I found was a nice new guard which I have never seen before in Qeynos, riding around all glowy on his armoured horse. Plus, he's a level 70 x4 epic.

Man, we can have raids in cities now woot!

Anyway I am just curious what the guards would drop if I killed one, so I hunted around for more.

Oh yeah, found one level 55 one, 3 ups. I made sure he walked a ways off away from the other guards (in case they are social). When he got to a relatively secluded spot, I pulled. Midway through the fight, some wandering guards saw us and they attacked. Oh boy, what a time to find out they are social!

Hmm 1 against 4... that's not really fair. I hit Feign Death and broke the encounter. Once they sheathed their swords, I stood up. For some reason, one of the guards didn't reset (Doh! I should have learnt by now after going on so many raids - "WAIT FOR THE MOBS TO RESET!!" would be the usual battlecry from our raid leader hehehe!)

Well anyway, down into the dirt I go. The dreaded revive box popped up and offered me only one revive location - Antonica.

Hmm one would think that in a city you'd revive at the local morgue or hospital. Oh wait, we don't have hospitals in Qeynos. For that matter, we don't have hospitals in Freeport too. Nor in Maj'Dul. Hey! Where do sick people go when they get sick? You can't expect us to stop every cleric we see in town and say "Heal plz kk tkx" right?

Anyway I ran back into North Qeynos and looked for that guard that killed me, and exacted my revenge. SOE wasn't kidding when they said they "beefed up" the guards. Normally I could take a level 55^^^ (that's 3 ups), although with some effort, solo.

These guards weren't ordinary 55^^^s. Midway through the fight he hit me for some incredible damage and I went from around 80% into about 25%. I went from green to orange, and bypassed yellow!

After some more fighting I managed to kill the guard, and guess what he dropped? A human femur yick! Maybe the devs decided to give them lousy loot so we don't go around killing guards in the city heheheh!

After this round of tests, it seems to me that maybe now, doing Assassin's Blade and Stein of Moggok quests would be easier. We don't have to sneak around anymore. A whole group of us could literally FIGHT our way into Freeport brazenly. Even getting dragon runes in Freeport Academy would be a cinch now - there's only one guard patrolling the path from the sewers to the mage academy, and that guard is only like level 30 or so. When you're out getting dragon runes you would be about level 50, piece of cake!

That is, assuming they don't add new guards, especially not those level 70 epics riding around on their glowy horses there too....

Made Contact Again!

2006-02-23T22:16:00.000+08:00

Ok so I noticed DarkEmerald getting back onto Yahoo, so I IMed her.

Turns out she's still on EQ2, and still on Nektulos Server. She's commandeered her Sis-In-Law's account again, and the warden is now level 57. I seriously doubt she'd transfer the warden over to Antonia Bayle but one can only hope.

Currently I have yet to login to EQ2 since the huge update on Feb 22 (Feb 21 USA time). Servers have been laggy, and acting weird. I guess I missed the live event where they make those portals to go up to the Kingdom Of The Sky, and since DarkEmerald's on Nektulos server, there's not much incentive to convince her to move over to Antonia Bayle.

I mean hey man, level 57 warden. Damn.

Live Update 20

2006-02-22T02:00:00.000+08:00

Ok today's the big day.

Well yeah it's Feb 22 today. In the USA it's still Feb 21 though, and this is when they push the Live Update out. Again there's going to be a lot of changes. Again I am going to have to learn how to play my character properly.

The sad thing is, once I finish downloading this update (gawd, 22 mins more to go), those who have "pre-ordered" the Kingdom Of The Sky expansion can begin their climb to level 70 immediately.

Me? I have to wait for Tecdrome to get them into Singapore. I am expecting this Saturday, but anything can happen. I might have to call them and find out when I can go and get it.

I can bet that as soon as I login everyone's going to be doing their Achievement quests. I probably can't do a thing, nor get any xps, till I get the expansion in and installed.

Well download is now done - I just tried to login and guess what? Yup. Servers are still LOCKED.

Sony does this all the time! They say "Down for 3 hours" and then they always, ALWAYS overshoot the time. It's probably closer to 5 hours since they brought it down.

Guess I will have to wait till tomorrow to login to Norrath...

Getting Back Into The Thick Of Things

2006-02-18T07:07:00.000+08:00

Ok so I decided it's high time for me to return to Everquest 2.

I mean, why not? Today's the start of the "Bonus XP Weekend". Also, Feb 21 (Tuesday) is drawing closer.

So, I loaded up EQ2, logged onto an alt (level 42). Then I got into a Runnyeye group with the folks from Infinite Luck. Well, the funny thing is, I can't remember what some of the hotkeys do, and I've only been away from EQ2 like about a month or so.

So anyway, we ran pretty deep into Runnyeye. Ugglor joined us a little later, and as we were approaching the place with all them eyeballs (ie, very DEEP into Runnyeye), the dang servers decided to come down at 6.30pm (which is actually 2.30am PST).

Damn, not even a single warning. No bleeps, nothing. We were in the thick of fighting eyeballs and goblins and the servers came down and booted us all.

I am seriously NOT looking forward to logging into Leireth again to find out he's dead as a doorknob and needs to revive. The good news is though, there aren't shards anymore, just debts. Debts I can live with, because I am already used to them from City of Heroes.

Ah well, I will logon a little later around 10am to see what raids are going on. It's time to get my feet wet!

Erus Ex Universitas!

2006-02-16T22:54:00.000+08:00

Cool!

Paganstar (esteemed guild leader of Erus Ex Norrath) has decided to merge Erus Ex Norrath into the universal Erus Ex Universitas.

What that means is that if we ever quit one game and go on to another, we can still go back to the same website and talk to the same guys and excitedly tell them how cool the new game might be. Also, it opens the way for any of us to start an Erus Ex guild in the new game.

I already registered at the new place, and I *just* saw Pagan integrating the calendar into the new site.

I guess we can kinda remove the Erus Ex Norrath link from our browsers now.

Or maybe not.

Feb 21 approaches too - time to dust the cobwebs off Chenyu and start levelling him up to 70. That is, assuming Tech Drome will manage to get the Kingdom Of The Sky into Singapore soon.

On Haitus

2006-01-30T00:07:00.000+08:00

Lately I have been taking a break from Everquest 2. Truth is, I am starting to feel burnt out.

There also isn't anything much to do at lvl 60. Once you have reached the cap, all desire to complete quests and get more xps are gone. Even the item rewards at the end of the quests aren't that exciting to entice me into completing them.

A whole bunch of level 60s I know have been madly trying to complete the Peacock Quest series of quests, culminating in T6 fabled weapons very much like the Prismatic weapons of T5. Somehow I don't have the same need or urgency to own those fabled gear, partly because the peacock quests are usually damn hard to do and need a group. Being that I am in Singapore and hence on the other side of the world, there is hardly anyone willing to form a group (lack of numbers) for the same goal.

Anyone that is under lvl 60 is trying their hardest to get to level 60 so they can go raiding (trust me, raiding is nice and cool, but you also do get tired of it if you go on too many raids). Anyone else level 60 is way ahead of me on the peacock quest series.

Hence, I can only solo if I get online.

Anyway, I will be on haitus for awhile more, maybe till the next expansion comes out.

The Journey Ends.... Again

2005-11-22T06:22:00.000+08:00

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the Pillars of Flame today.

Ok first of all, eversince Everfrost and Lavastorm, where I had put up the LFG flag for hours and hours and never got picked up for anything, I kind of gave up on LFG-ing. So, I have been mostly solo-ing on Chen, only getting into pickup groups very rarely.

This perception was further strengthened by recent events where I kept looking for a group for the pirate ship step of the new An Ancient Desert Power heritage quest, but could never find anyone for it.

So the funny thing is, a couple of days ago I got into an xp group (as stated in a previous blog). Seeing how fast the xps came, I thought - why the heck not, try putting the LFG flag up and see if anyone bites. So I did. I didn't even put out any OOC msg. I just turned it on, and went on my own way, building up faction with the Ashen Order monks (man I really want the Jade Tiger title).

Within like 3 mins, both times (yeah I put the flag up twice), I got picked up into an xp group. Well the 2nd time was a group specifically going into Scornfeathers Roost and Ancient's Table, but it was still really good xp.

And then, this happened:

Ding you're level 60!

Yup, I made level 60.

So what now, I ask myself? Continue to build faction with the Ashen Order monks? Yup I would do that. I am almost there. I can take a short cut with the faction with the Blades now though... get some coins and buy favour with them back. I still might have some in Chen's vault in the house, but what the heck I can get more from the guild bank anytime.

I might also think about getting access quests for Silent City and Obelisk Of Lost Souls done too.. you know, just so I can go in and do Tarton's Wheel.

Grinding To 59

2005-11-20T06:01:00.000+08:00

There I was, just doing yet another "Trials Of Ash" quest to build up my faction standing with the Ashen Order monks in Pillars of Flame. First of all, I wanted to get the cool Chinese Coolie hat that they are wearing. One of their merchants must sell it!

Secondly, I found out that if I complete the whole series, I would get a suffix title called "the Jade Tiger" tacked on to my normal name. Hence I would be known as "Chenyu, the Jade Tiger". That would be really cool.

So anyway, I was out at the Giant Fields in far southwest of Pillars of Flame, getting some Flame Tornados that was required by the quest. Then, on OOC I saw someone broadcasting that a Giants xp group has a spot open for DPS. So I signed up. At this point, I was about 30% into level 58.

We went off killing giants. We went up the ramp into their camp. We slaughtered them over and over. I saw my xp bar keep rising.

Four hours later, at 6am, I dinged 59. Was completely unexpected, but a welcome surprise. I had only turned 58 a day or 2 earlier, so it's actually very nice not to need to do so many quests just to get to 59.

Now let's see how long it takes me to turn 60. I am expecting to be level 60 around Wednesday or Thursday. It would be nice to be level 60 to go on the Froglok raid as well as the Nektropos Castle: The Return raid...

Final 2 Levels

2005-11-16T20:17:00.000+08:00

Yup, just turned 58 today! Managed to find the picture I took of it too, and realised that during one of the recent patches, the game now puts screenshots into its own directory and doesn't clutter up the main EQ2 directory anymore.

Picture is below:

Well, just 2 more levels to go before I hit level 60. This itme it took me 3 days to get from level 57 to level 58, and I still have over 95% vitality! I have levelled up from 56 without seeing the end of the vitality pointer in 57, and now in 58 I still don't see the pointer. I think maybe now, Sony has instead given us vitality that is endless. They may as well go flat out and announce a permanent 2x bonus to all xp earnt.

Anyway I am not complaining. I still have tradeskill xp bonus potions unused. I will use them on Chen to level him up to 39 as soon as possible so I can imbue the Pristine Conditioned Oak Kite Shield I made for Grrrik. That reminds me, I need to buy the T4 imbuing extract. I wonder what it's called, glimmering extract maybe.

Well anyway, I hope I can make level 59 in the next 3 to 5 days... so level 60 should be just next week. Besides, I want to get the Jade Tiger title by completing the Ashen Order monk quests. Looks promising, and I am already at KINDLY status as of now.

... And Then He Was 57...

2005-11-14T00:49:00.000+08:00

Yep, just made level 57! Go me!

I tried to take a screenshot, TWICE even.. and somehow I can't find the screenshots in the folder! I am starting to wonder if Xfire had managed to interfere with it because now, in the latest version, it also has screenshot capabilities.

I need to remember to test this later by trying to take another screenshot.

Anyway, yeah LU16 went live. We got our Veteran's Rewards. I actually used up all the bonus xp potions given to me, and somehow it propelled me to level 57 without much of a speed boost.

I also could have kicked myself for claiming a 12-slot bag from the Veterans Rewards. Chen does not need it, it's NO-TRADE hence I can't even put it into the bank to give to Grrrik or someone else. The good news is, I got 2 more claims left, so I can safely use Dakarth and Grrrik to claim the remainder of the 2 bags.

Wish I could have given the 12-slot bag to Leireth tho, but now that he's level 41 he doesn't really need the free one.. he can buy the 14 slots on his own now.

Speaking of which.. it's time I got Leireth to do a couple of heritages so he can get enough status to buy a 32% horse...

Erus Ex Norrath's First Anniversary Video

2005-11-11T11:48:00.001+08:00

Yay!

I just finished making the video - check it out here!

Well that's the 55MB version. If you want the smaller versions, check out the list here.

The song is Princes Of The Universe by Queen, and is the theme song of the movie "Highlander". When I first heard it after Pagan suggested it, the image of the opening sequence came to me :)

Well enjoy! Happy Birthday Erus Ex Norrath!

Upper Echelons

2005-11-07T23:58:00.000+08:00

A couple of minutes before midnight, Chen levelled up to 56. That finally pushed him into the upper echelons of the game, where only the highest-level players normally will congregate.

I even took a screenshot too - check it out!

The place is in the Court of Blades, in Maj'Dul. That is how I can get myself ready to snap the picture of myself levelling up. If it was like the other times, I would be levelling up during fights or something, and I would have been too busy to snap a screenie.

In other news, Chen now needs access to Obelisk Of Lost Souls to grab the dragon runes. Brenu has made a raid available in 4 hour's time just to do this. Also, Terenius needs to get into both Solusek Eye and Obelisk Of Lost Souls to grab the rods that make up Tarton's Wheel.

The tricky part for Terenius is, need to run to the Teleport on the other end first.... and the mobs along the way SEES invisibility! I even remember Sonnets taking us for the quick runs and we were running like hell and not stopping for anything at all.

I might bring Terenius to LS and try to sneak around or something. I know that there is no way past the Temple of Solusek Ro, cos the mobs in there see through invisibility and they are all level 48 or so. Might have to just run and pray.

Free Naggy Run at 55!

2005-11-02T18:45:00.000+08:00

So there I was, slowly getting myself up to 55, which I did, today.

Then, on the FoG channel (that's Fellowship of Guilds), Solnus was offering a "free ride" to speak to Nagafen, the dragon in Solusek Eye. How can I pass up a chance to talk to Naggy?

So I said I'd like to go, and I did. Once I stepped into Solusek Eye, Solnus teleported me to his location, which is way deep, deep, deep inside Sol Eye. As he said, hours and hours of running and fighting has been saved.

Much thanks indeed Solnus! Now all I have left to do is find the runes. I have already started looking. I could have kicked myself cos I was in Solusek Eye and I didn't grab the 2 that was needed in there. I can do that again this coming Friday though, cos Wiaje said she will be on to continue Saving Soles.

We'll see how it goes. Tomorrow, the hunt for the runes continue....

Menagerie Access

2005-11-01T23:08:00.000+08:00

I have just done something with Terenius that I have never done with Chen before - I got Menagerie Access!

Yes, now I can sneak in to grab the rod, if I can. The only place left is Obelisk of Lost Souls, where I need someone really high level to get me into the place.

What happened was that I just got in on Terenius, helped Carrieann kill the Scarecrow King, and then someone in Everfrost asked if I'd like to group up. The funny thing is, he asked me how much damage I can do, instead of how well I can heal.

Well whatever it was, I made like 7 bubs of xp on Terenius, just by starting and completing the entire Menagerie access including all the sub-quests found within it. I even dinged 44 on the quest too, although nobody in the group noticed over the sound of fighting. Only guild members know cos of the notification.

Blue Robes

2005-10-31T23:29:00.000+08:00

Sometimes I can kick myself. I am so used to buying the best of the best of the best for Chen and Terenius, that I didn't save money when I could have on Leireth.

Since Leireth doesn't really get into the thick of things, he can make do without rare robes (ie non-legendary). However, at the time I wasn't thinking so I bought legendary-level robes and pants for him, costing about 1 plat 40 gold in total.

I could have gotten the same set, but normal, standard, handcrafted-level ones, for a total of 30 gold. Yes the stats might suffer a little, but 1 plat more for 2 more points Intelligence and Wisdom?? I really should kick myself!

Plus, the non-legendary robe looks better in my opinion. Nice, grey robe with cyan trimmings, instead of this outlandish purplish-blue robe with gold trimmings.

Well now that Leireth has hit level 40, yeah he's wearing them now.

Ding! You Are Now Level 54!

2005-10-25T16:16:00.000+08:00

Unexpectedly, I dinged 54 today. I had half expected Chen to hit 54 around October 30th or so, near or around Halloween.

So it was a surprise that I actually hit 54 so quick. Part of the reason is that I discovered, albiet a little too late, that quest xps are independent of vitality! Yes! With or without vitality, quests will always give you the same amount of xp once you turn it in! So if you have a short repeatable quest that you can keep doing, such as the Tears Grifters quests in Maj'Dul, you can keep turning them in for quest xp and thus, advance yourself even without adventure vitality!

It was such that I actually went from 53 to 54 is about 3 days or so, just playing Chen, and doing quests. Most times I was solo, but once or twice I was in a group.

With this discovery, I realise that "xp groups" are only good when you have vitality to spare. Otherwise if you are out of vitality, just do quests. Turning quests in will give you xp.

Thus I am sure good candidates for quest xps will be book quests and collection quests.. I am going to start "buying" collectables and turning in those for xp really soon.

Of Carpets and Stones

2005-10-23T04:23:00.000+08:00

First of all, Terenius finally got the Strange Black Rock quest done, and got a nice Glowing Black Stone to wear which increased Intelligence and Wisdom. After that, I noticed that he has like 2.5 bubs of xps to go before hitting level 42, so I brought him to run around Maj'Dul. He did a level 50 quest there, which gave alot of xps, as well as running around Maj'Dul and getting location exploration xps.

All in all, that was enough xps to bring him into level 42 - location xps as well as the level 50 quest to locate Nazeem's mother. As soon as he turned level 42, I sold off Terenius' horse which netted me 1 plat and 44 gold. Why did I sell the horse? Well since I can wear the Legendary Journeyman Boots, which gives me a 10% speed boost, and I also have Spirit Of The Wolf spell on Terenius which gives 20% speed boost, the combined boost will be 30%, which is just 2% less than the horse. I can live with a 2% speed loss heh!

Then, I spent 1 plat and 32 gold on 2 hex dolls, one for Wisdom bonus and the other for Intelligence boost. So, I improved Terenius' stats and still made 12 gold "profit"!

Just when I thought the day was already going pretty well, it got better! While running around in Sinking Sands on Terenius, basically testing his new hex dolls and the new JBoots, there was a guy spamming in OOC about forming a Carpet Quest 4 raid force. I switched to Chen quickly and got into the group.

So there we were, on the lonley rock that the Djinn was supposed to be, 24 of us. First time around we all got creamed because somebody aggroed the Djinn before anybody was ready. Then, exactly 6 people left. I really don't like those sn0bby "damn if they get me killed they must suck!" guys. This wasn't because of an incompetent group! It was an ACCIDENT! We did not get killed repeatedly and not learn from it.

Well I know their names and I won't be grouping with them anytime soon. They might get me killed and leave me alone to get my own shard or something.

The good thing is, after those 6 snobbish people left the raid force, we got 6 more guys in, and as luck would have it, we got a level 60 Illusionist which made the whole thing easy after she mezzed the pets, so we could all just concentrate on killing the Djinn.

Well anyway, after spending a couple of hours and having the groups rotating thru killing the Djinn, we all got our required updates. We all ran, evacuated, recalled, or whatever, at our fastest speed back to the Carpet Quest giver to finally get our carpet.

It was a little disappointing though. The carpet only gave a 25% speed boost. By about level 50 or so, most of us would have already gotten at least a 32% speed horse, or a 40% speed carpet from the city merchants. Getting a 25% speed carpet is kind of anti-climatic.

However the good thing about owning that carpet is that now, you can take carpet rides at various locations within the Sinking Sands and Pillars Of Flame zones like you can take griffons in Antonica and Commonlands. In other words, the carpet will allow you to travel really quickly in those zones if you have "discovered" those locations beforehand.

Yup I'm pretty happy all in all.

Ding 53!

2005-10-19T04:51:00.000+08:00

Ok just got to level 53 today. So it takes me 10 days to grind one level. In between these 10 days there are of course downtimes for Chen. For example, I know I spent like 4 days playing Grrrik, getting him from 22 or so to 27, and Leireth from 33 to 35. Plus, I am going to get Terenius from 40 to 41 soon.

Vitality is totally gone from Chen. He needs probably about 4 days or so for the vitality to come back in full. Terenius has had a run of bad luck and had died like 8 times in 10 mins. No thanks to Lavastorm and their see-through-invisibility mobs. I think Terenius might have to wait a couple more days before the debts go down sufficiently enough for me not to dread playing him.

So if it takes 10 days to get from 52 to 53, I am predicting it will take me about 12 days to get to 54. That would be about.... well, Halloween! We will be having a guild meet and some events or something too in the meantime.

Cool!

The Grind

2005-10-09T22:53:00.000+08:00

Ok I finally got to level 52.

I tell you, the grind is horrible at these levels. The vitality disappears too quick, and in a few hours the whole 100% is gone.

Compare and contrast that to those for lower levels, such as low or mid-20s. I can go a few days before the vitality starts going down. You know what that tells you? Yeah it tells you that the amount of xps needed at levels 50+ is heckuva lot. Even the vitality pointer doesn't go more than half the whole xp bar when at 100%, at lvl 51...

I wonder I am going to grind to 53. Ah well....

Tier 6 Imbues are in!

2005-10-06T11:55:00.000+08:00

Ok last night they had a long shutdown (3 hours) but there wasn't any warnings about Live Update 14 going "live". Well the good news is, the imbuing recipes are finally in for those crafters that are 50+.

So what this means is, soon enough we will see tier 6 armours, weapons etc coming out. Chen will have to get a whole set of armour (probably cost 4p total). The weapons... ah well probably another 2p, so I need to start saving up till I get at least 6 platinum pieces before I can be fully equipped...

In any case, the crafting transition from level 30 to 31 was almost painless... I still have some Binding recipes (tailoring) left undone when I dinged 31 Woodworker, so that means I still have some pristines available to me to score double xps when I next do crafting.

I also realised that level 31 is when Woodworkers are able to make Spirit Totem Of The Wolf, a pretty-much sought-after item for people who are doing the JBoots run (Journey Is Half The Fun Heritage).

So, Chen made 3 or so, and put them up on the market. The prices were however, pretty dang high at 2 gold per totem. Freeport had them for like 79 silvers each. I priced mine at 1 gold 90 silvers and I somehow do not think they will "sell like hotcakes".

Anyway I will know once I get online on Chen later...

Grawfr's 6-Month Drinking Binge

2005-10-04T11:33:00.000+08:00

We just got word - Grawfr will be posted out to France or Israel or some other faraway place from Canada, where he lives. He will be gone for 6 months starting October 12th, and that's only like 9 days from now.

Ah well, we're gonna miss him. With Grawfr gone, Chen is now the guild's highest level tank. Man it's scary to think that I play 2 of the guild's highest archetype - I play my guilds highest healer too, Terenius... he's only level 40 and he's the highest we have. I have 2 more characters, Dakarth is a scout, but the guild's highest is Henaz :) Leireth is a Conjuror, but Pagan is the highest Conjuror in guild.

Chen has run out of adventure vit again too. So, last night I had him do some crafting and I finally got to level 30 crafting around 2am my time. Man it was a long grind from level 26, where I got like just 1 or 2 new recipe per level of Woodworker gained. Now at level 30, where even the Washes and Resins are white (instead of blue or green), the xps should fly... at least till I'm like 34 or 35 Woodworker where it will start to slow down again..

In other news, I am surprised that my first video, "The Monk" is more popular (downloads-wise anyway) than my newer "Look Over Here". I packed each of them up into a .torrent file and distributed them over Bittorrent network yesterday, and The Monk has been downloaded more often than Look Over Here. In fact, The Monk now has 14 or 15 seeds (completed versions being distributed in Bittorrent) compared to Look Over Here which has only 2 or 3 seeds. The funny thing is, I packed up The Monk like 6 or 7 hours after Look Over Here. Maybe the Internet world isn't ready for a Mandarin music video...

Anyway that means the next video I make should be English, or instrumental. Ok, off to look for a song or an idea for the next video....

Furious 40!

2005-09-29T01:54:00.000+08:00

Terenius the Fury is now level 40!

I must say, it's getting quite boring to see everyone wearing the same armour at lvl 40-50, because by this time people would normally have enough money to buy the best armour and the best weapons, and since everybody buys the best, everybody wears the same!

Anyway I think I did make Terenius pretty rare, if not unique - he wields a wand instead of a regular weapon. See, first of all I have never had any character wielding wands before. Second of all, I figure that having a wand with an activatable spell is so much better than hoping for a 5% chance of a proc for gleaming strikes, so I went with the wand for Terenius.

Also at level 40 he got 2 new spells, but only one has NPC vendor selling the APP2 version. I guess the other one must be a new one from the DoF expansion. Dangit, that means I have to wait until somebody finds an Adept 1 drop or make an App4.

New Music Video!

2005-09-26T19:27:00.000+08:00

Yes! I made my 2nd music video! Check it out here!

This time I did everything faster than the first time around... about 2 days all in all, including translation of lyrics from Mandarin to English.

I think I did better this time around as compared to the first time. Well you tell me.

In other news, my alt, Terenius, by some good fortune, completed 2 Heritage Quests yesterday. Foomby's Stolen Goods and Training Is A Shield, both completed, yay! Even better news is - the shield can be used by Terenius next level! Yes indeed! So now I have to go look for a 1-handed weapon (preferably Legendary tier) to use, or I might end up like yesterday, unable to attack Emperor Fyst because I do not have any legendary weapons on Terenius.

Ah well I better log in to Chenyu and get his tradeskill up to level 30 before they remove the bonus tradeskill xps! It should be removed today or tomorrow I think.

Tranquility of Calm?

2005-09-23T18:33:00.000+08:00

Ok I bust my butt to get to level 51 and what do I find when I get there? Just a combat art to increase attack speed. It's not even as good as Wisdom Of Zephyl which I got at lvl 25 or so which I elected to turn into a Master 2 spell.

So get this - my level 25 spell costs LESS to activate, and works BETTER than my level 51 spell that is supposed to be an "upgrade". Also, along the way, this "line" has been upgraded twice before, once in the 30s and once more in the 40's. Both times, I didn't use the 'upgraded' version because my very first version, the level 25 one, works better.

Here I am, at level 51, and with an upgrade that I probably won't use again. There has to be a way to get the Adept 1 of this spell that costs less than 29 gold. Geesh, the people in Qeynos really do not know the concept of "fair pricing".

Hot In The Desert

2005-09-18T12:03:00.000+08:00

After much hand-wringing and breath bating, Desert Of Flames expansion of Everquest 2 arrived in Singapore on Saturday. Eagerly I loaded it all up and signed on.

How's the expansion like? One word - Wow! I like it. I love it. Without really seeming to "work" or to "grind" I am now 3 bubs into 50, and it's only been like a few hours since I first went into the new zones. Pagan, Brenu and I grouped for a few hours last night, and we were running around in the Living Tomb. Nice place for xps, might wait for Kaladun to come online for my next foray into that place tho.

I'm still itching to try out Harclaves to see if any Monk adept 1s will drop in there for the new levels (51-60). I probably should before my vitality runs out on Chen.

Also, I should load up FRAPS soon and grab some video footage of Chen zooming around on the magic carpets. Might be able to use those footage in an upcoming video I might be making. Current candidates for the next vid is Dragonstea Din Tei (Numa Numa dance) and Turn Back Time. I just need to get some inspiration to see which I might actually embark on.

That's all for now. I might log in on Terenius later to see if he can survive the beaches of Ro.

Maj'Dul - this weekend

2005-09-14T22:04:00.000+08:00

Ok yesterday the servers were down for most of the day for the new expansion Desert of Flames. Today, about 3pm or so, the servers finally became stable enough for me to log on and try out the new changes.

Overall the Fighter changes were ok... Chen no longer felt gimped and can actually kill faster than normal now. Terenius suddenly got 2 new "nukes" - got 2 new spells that hit for well over 600 damage...

Thus far, I only had time to test up to Liereth. The number of spells changed in Leireth's repertoire was ALOT. I could not recognise half my spells and the other half was weakened. Terenius's heals suddenly went down half in duration but twice as powerful.. gee, wonder if that will work.

Anyway I need to log in to Leireth later once the servers come up (they went down suddenly today for maintenace without warning!) and get him out of Orc territory. Then I will log in to Grrrik and Dakarth for the final 2 checks.

In any case, Singapore will only get the expansion this weekend, so I can only see Maj'Dul on Saturday. Then again I'm going out shopping this Saturday too.. might have to wait till Sunday to finally see Maj'Dul...

My First EQ2 video

2005-09-11T10:33:00.000+08:00

Yay I made my first EQ2 movie!!

Thanks to Dava for playing Carrieann, the lvl 21 Bruiser. Bruisers have a nice kata which can be made to look like a fight between Chen and Carrie.

Dava did say though that if we waited a few more days we could have done /DUEL thing for PvP and fought for real.

Anyway, I personally thought that the final fight sequence was done pretty well if I do say so myself. So far nobody noticed anything different :)

Oh yeah, go here to download the movie.

Comparing Harclave to Hideout

2005-08-23T22:06:00.000+08:00

Ogad was saying that it appears that Hideout provides much better xps than Harclave does, in Splitpaw. Since Chen is lvl 50 now and thus receives no more xps, I loaded up Terenius to test this claim.

Thus far, first attempt in Hideout last night failed because I died. At the point I died, I had almost achieved 2 bubs of xps (20% in EQ2-speak). I figure there wasn't much more xps to be had since I was almost at the end. I might get about 2 and a half bub of xp in total. However, since I failed in that attempt I will have to try it again when the servers come up.

It is confirmed, however, that at level 33, a single run through Harclave at "Difficult" setting produces 5 complete bubbles of xps, meaning 50%. Half a level! As such, assuming I do get 2.5 bubs of xp later in Hideout, it would appear that my earlier assertions were correct - 2 Hideouts = 1 Harclave.

The Journey Ends.... For Now...

2005-08-22T14:50:00.000+08:00

Aye, it has come full circle. The young wide-eyed monk, who started his journey on the Isle of Refuge so many months ago, has finally reached the final destination. He has attained Level 50 in the wee hours of 22 August 2005.

The final bub of xp was the hardest to get. I was totally out of adventure vitality, and thus, it was like working with debts all the way up to lvl 50. When I finally hit level 50, a sense of relief came over me. Finally I can stop "getting to the next level". Finally I can concentrate on Terenius or Leireth or Dakarth or Grrrik. Finally I can just do writs for fun with Chen.

That is, until the Desert of Flames expansion comes out on 12th Sept. Aye indeed, the Journey has ended, for now.

Shared Experience Debt Going Away!

2005-08-20T13:44:00.000+08:00

Hah! Check out this article on EQ2 Vault.

Finally SOE is wising up to the idea that giving your fellow groupmates debt when you die is not a good idea. When I was playing City of Heroes, they never had it done like this.

True enough, when you share the debts among groupmates, it makes people less tolerant of your mistakes. As soon as you make a mistake they kick you out of the group. At least in City of Heroes, we let the lone ranger do his thing, let him get killed over and over and then he learns not to do it again because he has a huge wad of debts whereas the rest of us have none.

Personally I dislike debts. It sucks even more when your good friend happens to die while in a group with you and you get his debt through no fault of your own or your friend's. Sometimes, things happen and people die not due to recklessness but due to other factors like being caught off guard, or adds from a wandering group of mobs. You know, things that aren't within your control. When things like these happen and you get debts even though you didn't die (but your friend did) it's totally demoralising.

Muld had a funny suggestion the other day though - we should get more adventure vitality the longer we play and stay online than for people who log in once in a while. In fact, Muld suggested, people should get DEBTS for staying offline, and may possibly even die while offline. Man that was hilarious! Can you imagine going on a 3-week vacation and coming back to a dead character lying in the middle of your own house? hahahah that is a funny mental picture!
■

Halfway To Level 50

2005-08-19T22:19:00.000+08:00

Ok Chenyu is level 49.55 now just before the servers came down for maintenance today. That means just 4 and a half bubs of xps more to go... about 2 Harclaves and some change assuming I have adventure vitality.

Since I just ran out of Adventure vitality, then the numbers must double - 4 Harclaves... maybe 5. I do not know if I want to continue on Chen or switch over to Terenius or something. Assuming I wait for Adventure Vitality, it would seem that the earliest I can reach level 50 would be Sunday late night, or Monday itself. That would be about August 21 or 22.

However, if I decide to push on despite not having Adventure Vitality, according to my calculations I'd still hit level 50 around Sunday night or Monday morning.... hah! Ah well, may as well rest up and wait for Adventure vitality.

Ash Fighting Batons

2005-08-17T12:53:00.000+08:00

You know what useful recipe we get at level 27 Woodworker? Just one (I think) - Ash Fighting Batons. The other 2 are just totem poles for enhanced vision, for a grand total of three... yes, THREE whole new recipes for the entire level 27.

Man, what do they want us to do for one whole level, make the same things over and over again to get to 28? I actually need to get to 29 to imbue things and that's like 2 more levels away. With such a pathetic amount of recipes available at these levels I wonder how I am going to do it. Even the Ash Kite Shield has turned white, meaning less xps now.

Guess I will have to keep churning out those shields and bows ... at least the components still give xps for now...

Antonia Bayle Bites The Dust

2005-08-16T16:25:00.000+08:00

No, Queen Antonia Bayle is still alive an kicking. The title refers to the name of the server, not to the Queen :)

This is what I hate about online gaming - when the server goes down, you can't play. There I was in The Builder's Choice, quietly hammering away at the forge (well technically it's a noisy affair) to make some Carbonite Shods when suddenly, the whole world caved in and I got booted back to the Character Select screen.

Man this is just great. Wonder if all the xps I made in the past 10 mins got saved. Tradeskill xps at this level (level 26 Woodworker) is hard to come by, partly because there's a pathetically small number of new recipes at level 26 and 27 (2 or 3 in total) and also as you level up, it takes more xps to get to the next level, just like adventuring.

Speaking of adventuring xps, Chen tried to do Harclave last night. Funny thing is, he died twice at "difficult" setting, which was strange because normally I have no trouble going through it. Might be because most mobs are now lvl 50s with some at 52 and 53 (Kind of reminds me of The Shard in City of Heroes. I remember flying through The Shard and then coming across level 53 brutes, and Nite-Hawk had a pretty challenging fight with them even though he is Regen).

Anyway, on the 3rd try I decided to go back to normal setting for Harclave, and now everything in there is either blue or white with the ocassional yellow (level 50). That went better, but the xps suck... only made like 1.8 bubs of xps at "normal" setting. I have no idea what the "difficult" setting would be because this is the first time I'm doing Harclave at level 49, and I have no basis for comparison. It might very well turn out that "difficult" setting might only yield another 0.2 bubs, it might yield more, I simply do not know.

Well anyway, I'm going to try logging on to Antonia Bayle again.. I hope they fixed it by now..

By Hook Or By Crook

2005-08-14T14:59:00.000+08:00

Right after completing Bone Bladed Claymore, I was totally flushed. I wanted to do more! Since Ogaming's quest section is fixed, I went in and took a look at what heritage quests there are left for me to do. Then I noticed this - "By Hook Or By..." which I have yet to start on.

So, sneaking around abit, I slipped past the level 42s guarding the door to Rukir's tree-stump house and spoke with him. I got the quest, and as with all heritages, it starts out boring - kill 100 Nightbloods.

Geeesh, ok so I went and started killing 100. It was heck of a lot slower than killing 1000 gnolls in Antonica believe me! Anyway as luck would have it, Grawfr came online to harvest materials to make armour, and he came to Enchanted Lands to do it. So once I finished killing the 100 Nightbloods, I asked if he was going into the Drafling Tower anytime soon because I needed to get JumJum from there, same step as he is in the quest.

So off we went into the Drafling Tower. We fought, and we ran screaming like scared little forest elves when we encountered a wandering patrol of Bixies (for the uninitiated, a "bixie" is a half human half bee monster). We finally got to the Refinery and fought to the huge vats containing jumjum to grab the required amount for Rukir. It was at this point that Paganstar was available to join us and so we waited for him to come before continuing on to the Queen's Chamber.

To summarise, we completed the heritage, and by the time we did it was already 10am Singapore time. I had not gone to bed the entire night, and I was desperately needing some sleep.

It was amazing.. 2 heritages completed in 2 days... haven't done this in a long time indeed.

The next day, I realised that Chen only needed like 8% more xps to level up to 49, so I took him out to complete whatever writs that were outstanding. I completed the one that needed Ice Walkers in Everfrost, which by the way, now I know exactly where to go to get Ice Walkers heh! It's at the area near the entrance of the Sepulcher, and not at the other end where I normally would hunt for mobs.

Once complete, I headed over to Lavastorm to try to get some Sootfoot Peons. There were not many of these too, as there are others there hunting the same mobs too. So in the end I only managed to get like 14 of them, and I need 10 more to complete this writ. In the meantime, I killed whatever else crossed my path, and finally pushed myself into level 49.

So here I sit, one final level to go before 50. 4 or 5 more Harclaves to go (assuming each Harclave gives about 2.5 bubs of xp like it did at level 48), or some writs and some hunting plus 3 Harclaves. Well, I would say I will hit level 50 in about 7 to 9 days.. which is like 2 weeks before Desert of Flames will arrive.

I sure hope Tecdrome will buy Desert of Flames. I think I will be buying that one.

Bone Bladed Claymore

2005-08-12T15:30:00.000+08:00

At last! I have completed the entire heritage quest Bone Bladed Claymore. The most agonising thing about this quest is actually the killing of 1000 "sentient beings" part and not the one about Opalla or whatever other heroic mobs.

The killing of 1000 beings took me approximately 3.5 hours to complete. It was dang long and about the same length as one Harclave run. Speaking of which, I need to run through Harclave again because:

I am poor again because I gave in and bought an Ebon Cluster instead of harvesting it.
Experience Points, what else?

Right now I must remember to clean up my inventory because it's still filled with junk from the "kill 1000 beings" part. I know I still have a whole stack or 2 of those status loot which I need to sell off to the scouts at Elddar Grove or the fighters at North Qeynos...

Earning The Trust Of Gnolls

2005-08-11T05:32:00.000+08:00

Well what do you know? Grawfr said he did the Prank quest solo, and I tried it. Yup, it works! So now I know - of the 3 out of the 5 or 6 quests that earn the trust of the Splitpaw Gnolls, these 3 are soloable!

Yup, Harclave (staple), Solo Arena, and Hideout are soloable! Don't have to depend on anyone anymore to help me get the shard to teleport back into Splitpaw!

Heritage Week

2005-08-08T17:15:00.000+08:00

Ok before we go any further, I saw with my own eyes, a Sony GM! Yeah while I have sent /petitions before and have had responses, I never seen one in-game in any MMO before till now. Here's a picture to prove it too!

Click on picture to enlarge

See the guy with red name? That's him! Yeah, the guy with the big green arrow pointing down on him... if you wanna take a closer look, click on the picture, it should zoom in.

Heh well anyway, we just had a guild meeting on Saturday (technically Sunday 1am Singapore time), and well, 2 things happened:

Guild Fees are upped to 10% instead of 5%
I got made an Officer of the Guild

So yay! I got promoted! Well I'm kinda still new and wet behind the ears abit, but I'm gonna try to see what new and wacky things I can come up with for the guild to enjoy.

For some updates too - Chen got to level 48, Terenius died 2 times in the BSV raid after the guild meet, and Dakarth, my new scout, made level 15 last night.. Why are these important? I don't know! It's my blog, and I'll write whatever I want in it....

Well anyway, this week is "Heritage Week", ie, concentrate on heritage quests. Well Chen can't do anything till he finds an Ebon cluster, and they are priced like 4 to 6 plats per cluster. Those greedy xxxxxx ! They want an arm and a leg plus cheese with their demands...

I wonder if I can find Berik, Sword of Thunder in the halls of Stormhold... Grrrik could use Berik...

Scouts and Jewelry

2005-08-05T14:32:00.000+08:00

You know what's the funny thing about Everquest 2?

It's the way the tradeskills are categorised. See, Jewellers make scout combat arts, or skills. Look, Jewellers! I mean, I would have thought Jewellers made just jewelry, you know, bracelets, bangles, necklaces etc stuff?

Then it gets better... Alchemists make fighter combat arts, like those for Paladins, Guardians, Monks etc. Umm... I thought Alchemists were short little gnomes locked away in the cellar in front of the chemistry tables and once in a while I'd hear "Boom!", the sound of explosions coming from the cellar...

The only logical (to me) tradeskill is the Sage - he makes wizzy and priest spell scrolls. Now, THAT I agree. A sage is a person who has studied long and hard. He knows stuff. Hence, if he is able to scribe a scroll for the Wizard, it's fine.

Yeah yeah it's all about "balance". True, I mean who would want to become a Jeweller if all they could make was just jewelry? There's only so many rings and bracelets you can make and sell and unlike real-world, there won't be any women coming to buy your jewelry on a whim. Once they got a ring that will last them to lvl 30, they will keep wearing that ring till level 30, or they get a better one off a monster drop.

Alchemists have it slightly better - they are able to make poisons and stuff, and poisons run out. Scouts need... well not NEED in as much as WANT to use poisons. Poisons help to push damage up. Scouts apparently are the only class in EQ2 that are able to use poisons.

So, it's either to become and alchemist or a jeweller. Right now I still have a choice because my new baby scout is only level 13 in tradeskill... I have 6 more levels to go before I must decide on a final trade - Alchemist, or Jeweller. I will probably go Jeweller, just so I can make scout runes.

Making Tower Shields

2005-07-26T22:45:00.000+08:00

I just levelled up as a Woodworker to level 25. In the new recipes is one for a Tower Shield. It was listed as a level 29 item and is "Challenging" to make.

However, I made a pristine version on the first run, and it's almost no different that the rest of the stuff I make normally. Just watch the durability and then when things get too bad, abort and retry from scratch. However, with the Tower Shield, I didn't even have to abort. It went fine from the start.

It seems that there is a new player to the shield-making market. He or she has been under-pricing everyone by alot, like almost half the price. So now a pristine-conditioned shield might sell for a gold and some change. Now, that is pretty darn cheap. hence I am not putting the shields I make up for sale yet. I want to see whether this new person continues to sell at such a low price. If he does I'd probably stop selling shields, but instead concentrate on bows. They seem to be popular, because my Ash Long Bows have literally been sold before I realise it.

Well I need to get one more level before I can make an Ash Bo for Leireth, and 3 more levels before I can make a Spellbinder Staff for him. By then I'd be able to start imbuing items, so maybe I might hang on abit longer before I decide to spend 24 gold and buy a severed Fir to make a shield for Grrrik.

Well as it is now, Grrrik has a shield that is easily useable up to about level 26 or 27-ish.

A Non-Raid

2005-07-25T19:13:00.000+08:00

First off, Chen has finally hit 47, with 0.6% vitality to spare :) As I was saying to Grawfr, I had 5% to go to 47, and 6% vitality. He said "Just Enough". I said, "Assuming I don't die and get debts". Which I didn't :)

For those who have no idea what vitality is, it's a "bonus" sort of, for you to get double the amount of experience points if you had "vitality". This vitality, or "vit" as we commonly refer to, is "given" every hour when you're online, and at every x-minutes interval when you're offline. How much is given, I am not too clear. Suffice to say, the general rule is if you are at 0% vit and you want to hit 100% you normally do not play that character for 3 to 5 days.

Well in any case, I hit lvl 47, and decided it's time to do some crafting. Scales of Pain then decided to do a raid, so I went along.

Unfortunately, the intended place to raid was not really a "raid" location, so we ended up hunting down Tundra Jack and Iceberg, and wanted to hunt Seraph, but apparently Seraph didn't want to show up.

All in all, a pretty satisfying day.

Missing Member

2005-07-21T22:05:00.000+08:00

Apparently, Zehn "disappeared". Not only did he disappear from the guild, he disappeared from the entire server. Attempts to "/friend" him gave error messages.

It's very strange because I highly doubt he will delete his level 50. It could be he cancelled, but even then, characters normally stay on the server. The only way to really make Zehn disappear would be to delete or to move him to another server...

Aside from this mystery, it's strangely coincidental that right after Grrrik grouped with Rising Dawn for the Armour Quest, that she joined the guild. I was surprised to see her among the listed members on the website heh :)

In any case, as soon as the servers are up, Chen is going back to Harclave to get some xps again... so far, 3 bubs into 36... by the time I am done with Harclave, probably 5 bubs or so into 46. Give it a couple more days and I can be 47 ....

Woody Woodworker!

2005-07-17T21:47:00.000+08:00

After a binge of crafting madness, Chen Yu is now a level 22 Woodworker. I can make shields, staves, quarterstaves, musical instruments and also some furniture. One of the more useful things I can make are strongboxes, and the highest amount of slots I can make right now is 12.

I am sure pretty soon, like in about a level or so, I can make a better strongbox. In the meantime, among the "rare" recipes, I managed to find that I can do bone items. The very first time I got a bone item, I made a bone kite shield for Grrrik, and imbued it too for good measure. All in all it cost me something like 55 silvers, but imagine, I can sell something like that on the broker for 5 gold!

Tradeskilling To Save Soles

2005-07-15T15:27:00.000+08:00

You know, now that I "get it" with the deal about tradeskilling and crafting, it's easy to level Chen up in Craftsmanship.

Much thanks to Grawfr, who gave me the initial tip, and Muld, who gave me more details later. I tried twice, and succeeded on the 2nd try, and made a pristine maple kite shield, which I gave to Grrrik, my new alt. Along the way, Chen dinged 16 in Craftsman. If I continue this way I might hit 20 soon and be able to make some cool stuff.

In other news, I put up a calendar event for Saving Soles heritage quest for this Saturday (technically Sunday my time). If we get enough people interested in it I may be able to get something going for this.

City Writs in Everfrost

2005-07-13T22:11:00.000+08:00

After about a month of layoff on Chen, I went and got some City Writs for him. Now that he's level 45 (actually he just made 46), the city writs are now solo-able, according to Sony. As such, I can just take my sweet time and do them.

So, my first city writ was in Everfrost, for Galebreaker Pilgrims. I had a faint impression that they might be out on the tundra, but I went over to the Jagged Plains instead. Well, got chased by wolves, and Arctic Monitors and decided to head to the tundra instead, and viola! I found a whole bunch of them.

I also found Sonnets, a Scales Of Pain member, also doing writs there. So we joined up and finished the writs.

In the end, I completed 4 writs, which prolly just bumped the guild up by 4% status points (4 blue ones). Not alot but every little bit helps.

Anyway, after the writs were done, I realised Chen only had like 1 bub to go to level 46, so I zapped myself over to Splitpaw Den, and did the Harclave trial again. Sure enough, the trial provided 2 bubs worth of xps at lvl 45, and pushed Chen into 46. So now he's 1 bub and some change into 46.

Hard to imagine huh... just 4 more levels to 50... and he's out of adventure vitality.. Siiighhh!

Wow It's Actually Fun Again!

2005-07-03T21:59:00.000+08:00

Heh yeah, part of the reason why I stopped playing Chen was cos it got boring and un-fun. It's no fun running around Everfrost and Lavastorm with your LFG flag up for 5 hours and nobody even want you in their group. Pickup groups apparently don't exist in those places.

However in Splitpaw, lvl 40+ pickup groups are alive! I see, rather often, people asking for more to join a party so that they can go into an instance or other. This adventure pack purchase is one of the better decisions I think.

Chen actually got through almost the entire level 44 on Splitpaw alone, and the 3 times I did the Harclave Trial kinda helped. He's now actually something like 8 blue bubs away from 45, which means about an hour or so in Splitpaw.

Terenius on the other hand, had no troulble finishing the "Delving Into The Darkness" portion and getting the shard to go into gnoll city. He even made it through the upper tunnels fine, solo. I am wondering if Leireth will have similar or better experiences when time comes for him to enter Splitpaw...

Chen On Haitus and the Splitpaw Saga

2005-07-02T22:25:00.000+08:00

Well yeah Chenyu has been on a haitus.

The past couple of weeks I have been playing my Fury, Terenius. Last time I left off he was lvl 18 or so.

As of this writing, Terenius is now level 28, and 3 bubs to 29. Pretty soon he will be in the 30s and be doing almost the same stuff Chen is doing.

On another note, I have purchased the Splitpaw Saga "expansion". I have seen how they (the guild guys) appear to be soloing in there but when Chen went in, he died like 3 times in 5 mins. That really sucks. In fact, it took me a couple of tries before I barely, BARELY made it alive out of a group of 4 mobs, all down arrows. I was out of heals, and the Toughness wore out. I almost kicked in Face Of The Mountain but eventually I escaped with barely 3 pixels of life to spare.

Man it looks like this place can't be soloed too much.

Camping in Everfrost

2005-06-12T00:06:00.000+08:00

There was supposed to be an informal guild event on Saturday, to go hunt the nameds in Everfrost for the heritage Eye for Power. We got together at the correct time, we even got to the World Tree Root to attempt to defeat the first named spawn.

He spawned, but we failed because we lacked a healer. It's amazing, because after coming from City of Heroes, a healer is not a necessity there. If you have enough controllers to do crowd control and debuffing, a healer isn't mandatory at all. However it seems that many "MMO Vets" are used to the idea that if a group doesn't have healing, it's not a good group. I can see where they get this idea from. I can also laud NCSoft for making City of Heroes a different kettle of fish compared to the standard fare out there for MMOs.

So anyway, we eventually managed to get a healer in, but by then we'd been camping that same spot for over 2 hours and we're all getting tired of it.

Eventually we called it quits, but in the meantime during the camp, I managed to get a couple of quests done and get 4 bubs of experience too.. not bad for a failed camp.

An Old Friend, and An Eye For Power

2005-06-10T11:39:00.000+08:00

After 5 real months, I finally managed to get in touch with DarkEmerald again...

Turns out she had a character on Nektulos server, but only level 11, so it was pretty painless if she were to start over in Antonia Bayle, which she did. As luck would have it, Pagan also came online about the same time, and so we finally went to see Pagan in Irontoes East and got her into the guild. Her main character name is Mireeh, and type is healer. She's going to go from Cleric to Templar after her class quest.

We had some fun when Pagan and Zehn hopped onto their froggies and we roamed Antonica killing stuff and helping DE to level up. Last we left her, she was level 9. Class quest should have happened now.

Anyway I have been looking for the red shard for Eye for Power heritage quest. Yeah I know where it's supposed to be, but there's too many aggro mobs in the area to do a successful search for it. I need Zehn or whoever to cast Invisibility on me so I can go run around abit more freely there than I can now. I need to get it soon, cos there may be a guild event on Saturday to complete this quest.

It's funny that Wind Walk, the monk's invisibility, happens only ONCE and even the Adept I version works up to only level 42s. Any mobs higher than 42 will be able to see through this.

However, Feign Death/Play Dead/Stop Heart or various incarnations of playing dead spell, happens a few times (ie upgrade)... and it's something I hardly ever use, and have never seen another monk use it ever. Actually unlike City of Heroes, I get a few useless skills:

Dragonstance - lose defenses, increases attack. No thanks, I'd rather have more defenses
Stone Stance - stuns caster, almost impervious to damage. Yay I can be invulnerable, but I can't attack.. so why bother to use it? I can't move, I can't do anything except stand there. Its closest brother, Face Of The Mountain is alot more useful. It just roots me and increases damage resistance. Yes, I have a use for Face of The Mountain, but will have zero use for Stone Stance.
Everburning Flame - Yeah so I attack faster "at the cost of health". What's the point? Now that I have the Flowing Black Silk Sash, it makes Everburning Flame even more useless.
Control Breathing - ok it's supposed to let me breath underwater. YAY! But, for only 30 seconds... uhhhh why? I may as well not use this at all for this purpose. Its other purpose is an "upgrade" to Martial Discipline/Karmic Focus line of skills. However after comparing statistics and power-use per activation, I decided to stick with Karmic Focus. What a waste...

In my opinion, these are really useless skills.. why even bother to give it to us?

Temple of Cazic-Thule, and the Green Hoods

2005-06-05T05:01:00.000+08:00

First of all, to get to this place, you gotta make a suicide run into the forest.

Second of all, you need to run and scream all the way to the entrance, and when you zone you hope to heck you end up on the other side still alive.

When you successfully accomplish these 2 steps, the next challenge awaits you - getting a group. Well thus far I have not had much problems. I went from 40.5 to 41 in like 2 hours or so. Got into a group led by Kaladun, with a couple of scout-types and mage-types plus a healer. The xp flowed like water and soon I hit 41.

I had to leave the group well because the guild was going to have a raid into Deathfist Citadel. Yup, the same one I swore I'd never go into again. Well, I won't go back in again because there's nothing more in there for me. The 2 remaining quests that I do have, I will delete.

So anyway, we grouped up with the lizards from Scales of Pain guild from Freeport. Initally we bungled and didn't kill some required mobs in the sewers below, but somehow, Sonnets fell through the world (yeah it's a bug) and ended up in the sewers, so she saved the day by killing all the required mobs.

So we spoke to the infiltrator, we distributed the required stones to the required women, and then we went to the Arena to await the final battle with Emperor Fyst... again. So anyway, somehow I won the incredible sleeves from the master chest drop from Emperor Fyst, which I'm wearing up to today. It will serve me well, up to level 50.

Well right now, I'm halfway into 41. Less than 5 bubs to go before I hit 42, when I finally can use the Journeyman's Boots and my Flowing Black Silk Sash. Oh yeah, and also a ring or a necklace from one of the other quests too, which has been red to me for a few levels now.

I should head back to Cazic-Thule and attempt to look for another xp group. Just one more should suffice - that would be enough to bring me to 42.

Which also reminds me - I need to look for a weapon that is Legendary and also able to serve me through to level 50 or so. The "Branche of the Treefolk" which I have now will only last me up to level 43. I sure hope there's more stuff out there that will last longer.

Mine Stein Is Not Einstein

2005-06-01T17:34:00.000+08:00

There's a couple of heritage quests that ended up in Feerrott. First is that Stein of Moggok, which requires me to kill bartender Clurg. Second is for the Flowing Black Silk Sash, the quest Teachings of Yoru.

For the Stein quest, Zehn helped loads by being a tank of sorts... I got all the bouncers and spoke to Rumdum in East Freeport, and all that is left is to talk to Bartender Clurg. Well Brenu soon approached the same point in this quest so we set off to try to get the Bartender. Eventually we did, and we all finished the quest.

Around this time, I got my 40th level.

Then, we continued onto the FBSS quest. One by one, we looked for the spirits to challenge. The hardest appear to be the guy in Rivervale, Bordun or something like that. Zehn and I alone could not handle him. So we enlisted the aid of 2 others, a level 46 Templar and a level 45 monk.

Again, eventually I came to the end - to visit Cynthan in Feerrott. When we got there, it was good that Khord, and Velarian were both waiting for him too. Thus we formed into a group and proceeded to wait.

In less than 30 minutes, Cynthan appeared and we proceeded to talk to him. He got angry and attacked us. One thing led to another, and we defeated him... and got to ransack his place and came away with the prized Flowing Black Silk Sash.

Training For A Shield

2005-05-27T00:06:00.000+08:00

Over the past week, I was just completing the trials given by Grozmeg (in Zek) for the Heritage quest Training Is A Shield. I also got the Stein Of Moggok quest with the help of Brenu, and with Zehn running around in Feerrott, managed to get all the bouncers...

So now all that is outstanding is to face Glurg the Bartender in Feerrott for the Stein, and to try to get a Sparkling Flower and an Ash Stave to advance on An Axe From The Past quest, another heritage.

Man I'm knee-deep in Heritage quests!

Deathfist Citadel is one big scary place full of orcs. I had to get into a raid to get the final part done - kill Emperor Fyst. That was the first and last time I will go into DFC again. Upon completion of that quest, I dinged 39, so yeah now I'm level 39, with about 5 bubs more to go to hit 40.

Yay me!

Tradeskilling and Feerott

2005-05-20T11:11:00.000+08:00

I spent the past few days actually in the Tradeskill instance, levelling up to 10 in tradeskills too! I kind of actually found it FUN (gasp!) and made myself some Shurikens, a couple of Sconces (candle holders for walls). I even made additional chairs for the long dining table I got from quests earlier.

So last night I was thinking that maybe I should work on the tradeskill again, and so I went to Thundering Steppes to get some stuff for the new level 10 stuff I can now make. While harvesting, someone was asking if anyone else wanted to go kill Varsoon, so I decided to join and hope that they might also want to get the books of Lfe and Death too.

So one thing led to another and eventually I got the quest Strange Black Rock done. So, when that was done I decided to head to Rivervale for Grumblerutt. Upon zoning into Thundering Steppes again (on the way to Nektulos Forest and then on to Enchanted Lands), I bumped into fellow guildmate Elariol. He was LFG and we teamed up. Along the run to the docks we decided to go to Feerott instead and we did.

On the run in from the docks into the Feerott jungle, we bumped into yet another guildmate, Zehn. Now, 3 of us teamed and started working on everyone's quests, killing, maiming etc. The xps came fast and furious, and by the time I needed to go, I had gained seven bubbles of xps! In other words, I am now again, 1.5 bubs from 38. Tonite, if I solo, I should hit 38 around midnight. If I group, I should get 38 in an hour or less.

Plus, I still need to turn in a couple of quests, those might bring some xps to bump it closer to 38 for me too. Well, that's the plan.. once I hit 38, I'm gonna work on tradeskills and try to get them up to at least 20, and go with Woodworker.

Journeyman's Boots and Bone Dirk

2005-05-16T10:18:00.000+08:00

Yes indeed folks, over the weekend, I completed two, yes, 2 Heritage quests! First was the Reaching Blade Of The Assasin quest, which gave a Serrated Bone Dirk. Since I'm a monk and can't used it, I hung it up on the wall at home.

Second one was the Journey Is Half The Fun quest. Grawfr took me on the Zek, Enchanted Lands and the Feerott runs, and we got through them all fine. The coolest thing is, I hit 36 on Friday night, and then logged off, so I'm like not even 1 bub into 36 when we started doing the Heritage Quests.

However, by the time I finished both these quests, I was 6 or 7 bubs into 36! Just from these 2 quests! Also, not to forget that I did die too, so there are debts to take into consideration, but the amount of xps is insane! I put the Journeyman's Boots next to my Dwarven Work Boots at home too, right at the foot of the bed.

So anyway, I was just running around in Zek trying to kill Vallon Quarry Elites when I got a tell from someone looking to form a RunnyEye group. So, why not? I head on over to Enchanted Lands, and joined the group.

That was by far the best pickup group I ever got into, guild mates notwithstanding. Nobody died, nobody panicked and ran, nobody stood by doing nothing while others do the work. In fact I even hit 37 during the raid on RunnyEye.

As I said earlier, level 36 was a short level for me... 2 heritages and 1 foray into RunnyEye was enough to bring me to 37. Wonder if I can repeat the same feat and hit 38 by Wednesday? Hmm..

Purple Monkeys and Snakes

2005-05-13T09:36:00.000+08:00

The most prominent feature in Feerott, I found, was the abundance of Huuptics. They are a race of purple primate-looking creatures. I call them Purple Monkeys. As soon as you step off the boat onto the docks, you can see them to the left and right on the shore.

Purple monkeys, although a little dumb, hit really hard. Taking one out alone already tires me to near exhaustion. Thus, when an anthropologist beseeched me to help her study the different types of Huuptics, it took a really long time before I got back to her with my results.

Yes, I have started spending more time in Feerott. Amazingly, it is MUCH safer in Feerott than in Zek. Over in Zek, I die on an average of 2 times per visit. In Feerott, I die an average of 0 (zero) times per visit, and the mobs are tougher here! Needless to say, this place is laden with XPs. Just spending some time trying to complete a quest will bump your xp bar up by about 2 bubs (or 20%, as they like to say here in EQ2).

One of the quests I have here is an annoying one - snake hunting. In City of Heroes, I hated those "Defeat x" missions. Here, I am starting to hate them with a passion. Sometimes, they tell you to "Kill mob until you get item", and I tell you, it will take a HEAP of mobs to get just 1 update. Imagine they tell you to kill 5, you'd kill on average, about 50 of that mob to get all 5 updates.

Then there is the other annoying type - kill the same mob, but of different "types". So you kill x ENRAGED wolves, then x FEROCIOUS wolves, then x WEALD wolves. By the time you are done with all 3 types, you'd be halfway to the next level.

Anyway, now all I need are brush stalkers (snakes). I don't even know how many I need, because the journal doesn't say. However each time I kill one, the quest helper will update and I will get to see how much is left to kill. Guess I will have to go deeper into Feerott and get this to update. Damn annoying quest, this.

Currently I am half a bar away from 36. Should be easy to get tonight, should be done in an hour or less. Once I hit 36, I'm going to switch out to Terenius and continue his climb up to 11 or 12.

My Lucky Star

2005-05-12T02:59:00.000+08:00

Tonight has been another good night on EQ2. First of all, I finally managed to scrape together enough money to buy a horse.

So I ran straight to South Qeynos stables and bought one as soon as I could. After that, I rode the horse all the way to Nektulos Forest, intending to continue foraging for a cluster of palladium so I can continue my Heritage quest A Strange Black Rock. About 4 or 5 stones later, I found Palladium!

As such, I have decided to name my new horse "Lucky". Here Lucky! Here boy! *whistle*

Oh yeah, not forgetting I finally managed to complete the city writ Sinew vs Steel in Zek, and on my own too!

Druid Dude

2005-05-11T11:14:00.000+08:00

Last night I decided to give my monk a rest, and started playing my (long-forgotten) level 7 priest. I made this guy about the same time as the monk, with the inspiration coming from my Arleah character Goondur, the evil cleric (which I believe was about level 18 or so in Arleah, which would translate to about level 46 here in EQ2).

I continued the long-forgotten "visit every spot listed in the book" beginner quest which I had stopped months ago on this guy. Along the way I picked up a couple of more quests and managed to somehow level him up to 9.

At this point, the "pick a class" quest popped up, and honestly, I spent the entire level 9 just completing this one task, because it was a lengthy quest. Speaking of lengthy... heritage quests are the longest ever! Class quests pale in comparison to length.

So, finally hit 10, chose Druid class and logged off. Tonight I might continue on the Druid, or maybe I might go back to the monk. Maybe I should try to get another level on the monk just to be safe, so that if Grawfr ever levels up to 46, he won't have to mentor down to accomodate me on Friday when we do the Reaching Blade Of The Assasin quest.

I Got My Earrings! Aren't They Pretty?

2005-05-10T03:17:00.000+08:00

I got home today and immediately set about trying to hit 35, which I did after an hour or so. I ran straight to Enchanted Lands to grab The Reaching Blade of The Assasin Heritage quest. First stop - West Freeport to talk to a "witness". So, trying to sneak into Freeport is pretty easy. Blame it on the self-serving braggarts of Freeport guards. How easily I snuck in under their noses!

After I had completed the steps up to talking with the halflings in Qeynos North, I decided to turn my attention back to trying to get a group to kill Hrath T'Vol. Unfortuntely no groups were forming and I had to scrape one together. Got lucky by having fellow guildies Dava, a level 40 Paladin, and Elariol, level 32 Wizard, to join. Also called upon a level 41 healer called Helm, from the Nektropos Castle group to kill Everling.

We went into Varsoon pretty smoothly. Nobody got hurt, nobody died, except for one team member, whom I shall not name and will never ever group with ever EVER again, kept running ahead and aggroing everything until we all died.

So anyway, since Elariol and I needed to complete Where This Will Lead Me quest too, we rotated around the 3 rooms and as luck would have it, the bosses in these rooms spawned pretty much on-cue and didn't require "camping".

In one of the rooms, Hrath T'Vol spawned, and we got him too. Hence, we advanced the Hadden's Earrings Heritage quest too. After the group disbanded, I went to continue this quest and eventually finished this one, and put another bub of xps on the guild. I have no idea how much status points I have now but I know that it's in excess of 140,000.

Tonight was a good night in EQ2... *big grin*

Ghoulbane Ghoulbane Hanging On The Wall

2005-05-09T10:41:00.000+08:00

Yes indeed folks, I completed the Restoring Ghoulbane Heritage quest! Got up to 6,000 plus status points in guild, and personal status points of about 130,000!

It's kinda cool to have these status points because when you run past guards in town, they snap to attention and salute me... heh!

Trying to get into a raid group was murder. Yeah I needed Torig dead in Cauldron Hollow, but nobody seems to want to set up a raid to go in there and get it done. Grawfr suggested in guild chat that I start one, so I did.. needless to say the response was overwhelming and I had to actually turn away people. The raid group was FULL, 4 groups of 6 people each, with a total of 24 people hammering away at Descendant Of Torig. He had no chance, poor guy.

So, after the raid, we all ran to Toranim in North Qeynos and zoomed back to Nek for the finale - to kill Malthus Everling. Yes, this time Everling did die. My group included 2 people from the raid too, and we methodically went through the castle and finally into Everling's room.

After Everling fell, a sense of relief overcame us. Finally we killed Everling. Finally I finished Ghoulbane quest. Finally I got Hadden's Earrings quest to advance.... but that's another headache... seems like nobody wants to go into Varsoon to get Hrath T'Vol.

Well anyway, currently I'm 1.5 bubs away from 35, and 18 gold pieces from a horse. Tonight, I will be trying to get to 35 and get a group to kill Hrath T'Vol.

I hope.

Shiny Brass Halberd

2005-05-06T11:23:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I completed this Heritage quest. Was completely lucky too, because I managed to join a group that was already camping T'Sanne in Nektulos, and I waited like a total of 5 minutes only, before the waves started popping and Captain T'Sanne appeared.

We died the first time, due to the unexpected nature of the appearance. However as the rest started to run back from revive points, we took him down easily the 2nd time around. He was conning a green 29^^ to me, at level 33. Even so, it was hard to fight him solo.

We headed back to K'Naee and the assasins popped on cue. They died, we all finished the quest without incident. Got some 30,000 status points, a Shiny Brass Halberd, and contributed about 2,200 status points to the guild too, and effectively bumping the guild level up from 15 to 16. YAY!

Currently I am at 1.5 bubs away from 34, so my "mission" tonight is to head to Enchanted Lands, grind the last 1.5 bars to 34 and then see about getting a group for Torig. Or I could head to Crypt of Betrayal and try to look for the Ire Warlock guy.

In any case, hitting 34 is more important right now... one more level could mean the difference between sucess/failure on the Torig raid or on the Ire Warlock...

City Writs

2005-05-03T12:11:00.000+08:00

It took me TWO HOURS to clear 2% debts to finally hit 33. And people were complaining debt in City of Heroes was bad! Somehow it seems like debt is easier to clear in CoH than here, and the debt bar is even LONGER in CoH!

Anyway, my main mission for tonight when I get home is this - get some City Writs from North Qeynos, the guards, and then go to Zek to do them. From what I see, they are relatively easy - killing Tallon grunts/operators and so on. Since I have already killed 25 grunts for a quest, I can easily kill just 17 to 20 for a city writ. Plus it gives me 2,250 status points on average for each writ, so may as well get it. I still need like 2 or 3 more writs to get 52,000 status points to buy a horse.

Speaking of horses, the thing about them is that they are so damn expensive! The only equivalent I can find in CoH is the Icon Tailors, where each change of costume costs you millions of influence. Then again, at levels 35+ in CoH, you had millions to spend anyway, and influence isn't a problem.

After the writs, if there is time, I will be concentrating on killing Ash Owlbears trying to get 60 of them so I can advance Dragoon K'Naee heritage quest onto the undead part.

I think I probably will be solo most of the time tonight - this time by choice, not by circumstance.

Feerott Is Green!

2005-05-02T18:58:00.000+08:00

Yes, I dinged 32 and got Feerott Access done with the help of the guild. Had to do it twice though, because honestly, a scrapper is not a very good tank. Besides, I didn't really upgrade my taunts. Most times I can't even peel mobs off other people.

Hmm ok maybe I should look into upgrading my taunts, just in case.

Yesterday, just on a lark, I went to Nektulos Forest and broadcasted for a group to kill Everling. Amazingly I got picked up in 20 secs flat! We were doing pretty good too.. very few deaths, I didn't even die once... until Malthus Everling.

His buddies and him whack us silly... we had a team wipe in under 30 seconds. I don't know if I want to try it again once the server comes up, but my first priority is to hit 33 first for today. Just a bit more to go!

As it is now, I am half a bar away from 33, and with debts... dangit! If I didn't have debts I could have been 33 now before the shutdown. In any case I will get 33 as soon as the servers come up and I kill wantonly. I know I need 6 more bears, but bears are SO hard to kill on Enchanted Lands! I have to engage a bear TWICE, breaking once. Seems like it's more luck than skill killing a bear.

But then again, most stuff are yellow to me on EL. At 32, and they are yellow. That shows you how high the mobs are there! Should I go back to Zek, or to Nektulos Forest.. hmmm choices choices!

In other news, I am now at 70 gold... very close to 1 platinum, and with one more platinum I can buy a horse!

Ok I really need to get back to the city and get some writs, and also to kill off the final 30 ash owlbears to move on to the next stage in the Dragoon Knaee Heritage quest.

Feerott Acess Soon!

2005-04-28T19:02:00.000+08:00

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!

2005-04-28T14:41:00.000+08:00

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

2005-04-27T09:45:00.000+08:00

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...

2005-04-20T23:05:00.000+08:00

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

2005-04-20T12:16:00.000+08:00

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!

2005-04-19T03:14:00.000+08:00

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

2005-04-17T21:24:00.000+08:00

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

2005-04-16T19:45:00.000+08:00

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

2005-04-15T02:51:00.000+08:00

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!

2005-04-13T10:55:00.000+08:00

Hey hey guess what I found on EQ2Interface.Com? Check out the link below!

CompassClock with Location, Month and Day

The 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)

2005-04-12T17:30:00.000+08:00

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

2005-04-11T19:12:00.000+08:00

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

2005-04-09T19:06:00.000+08:00

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

2005-04-06T21:03:00.000+08:00

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!

2005-04-06T04:20:00.000+08:00

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!

2005-04-05T03:00:00.000+08:00

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

2005-04-04T11:06:00.000+08:00

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 :)