Play Greenmisty for me.

Last night whilst playing EQ2, something happened that I absolutely love. I found a questline I had no idea existed. I was aware of the final reward for the questline as an item, ‘Greenmist’ a very cool looking samurai sword that glows green but up until last night I had no idea where it came from. I found it quite by accident. I had logged in late because of work and as usual when that happens the rest of my guild are usually already committed to something. So I decided to carry on two boxing Adurj and Voltaan through the Stonebrunt timeline. Before I logged Voltaan in, I thought I’d do a quick check of my quest journal on Adurj as he was already logged in, just to see what steps were next. As I was scanning through my journal I noticed a couple of my Heritage quests were green. This made me pay a bit more attention as I couldn’t recall having anything but grey and orange HQs in there. One of them was called ‘The Name of Fear’ and I didn’t recognise it. So after a bit of research I found that the quest is the first in a set of five quests that together make up a HQ. The quest itself is picked up from an item in Emperor Atrebe's Laboratory: The Fabled City of Kor-sha, in Guard Captain Kelkrins room, a little statuette or idol of Fear. I couldn’t even recall picking it up! The last time I had run that zone was, well I can’t recall it was that long ago. I forgot to check in my journal when I had picked it up exactly, but I know it wasn’t recently.

Anyhow, after my research I checked out the name for the timeline and lo’ and behold, yes, it is called the Greenmist timeline. Suddenly everything clicked in to place. So that’s where it comes from! So far I am only on the third quest in the series ‘The Call of Fear’ and to be honest at level 88, it’s fairly easy so far. As part of the quest I’m on I will have to head into VoEs at some point to use a clikky there. Problem is it’s in the last room so I will have to find an empty instance or complete the zone to get the update. Not a problem, Voltaan and Adurj can two box there quite easily. The last quest in the series sounds like fun. Based in a special instance of Freeport, it looks like I have to help stop an invasion or something like that. There’s lots of moving of crates and barrels to block gates and general panicky running around. Hopefully I’ll get up to that point tonight.

I really do love it when I find content I had no idea about and then that particular content I have found turns out to be a lot of fun. It’s one of the things that reminds us of how absolutely huge EQ2 is as a game and the time and effort put into it by the devs. So, as it stands, it looks like more ‘Greenmist’ questline fun tonight and mebbe Adurj will have a nice new blade to play with (the stats aren’t very good but it looks very cool).

Apologies for the crappy screeny. It was the best I could find of the blade on the web in a short amount of time. When Adurj gets his, I’ll post a clearer pic.

Greenmist stats

Greenmist Sword (poor quality pic)

Be well.

EQ2 Extended - FTP

A bit more info. It seems that my understanding was a bit awry of how this is going to work. It looks like we will get completely different servers to EQ2 Live! Anyhow, full details on the SoE webby here.

Also, check this out. It's the payment matrix and may give you a bit of an insight into how this will work...

EQ2 Extended - Payment Matrix

Be well.

Enervations what you need..

Last couple of nights on EQ2 I have been trying to catch up by getting my enervated questline completed for my mythical. For non EQ2 players it’s a couple of quests to turn your Fabled or Mythical weapon procs and buffs into a spell, freeing you up to use a different main hand weapon since the SF expansion has come out and there are a lot better weapons out there. In addition, if you have only the fabled version it improves the weapon stats to that of the mythical version.

The reason behind me completing the quest is because I happened to have an open and empty Demitriks Bastion (“DB”) instance and because I’m not a big fan of that zone I thought if I could get my questline up to the point where I need the DB update, I can go collect it and never have to visit again. Not knowing anything about the specifics of the quests, of course I researched them and didn’t realise there is a bit of an introductory quest before you actually start the enervated quest to collect a gem and do some running around the Vermin caves and obtaining some kills near The Eye of Dartain in the Sundered Frontier. Only when you have completed this quest can you head to Quel’ule to start the “Epic Repercussions” quest to enervate your myth. There is a little bit of running round getting some updates in Stonebrunt, one of which is a rare drop. Man that rare drop was a pain. Lost count of how many silly mamba snakes I killed before I got the update. It’s one of those mobs too where the spawn spots are all over the place and there really doesn’t seem to be too many of them. Anyhow, I managed to get that update eventually then realised that I had to get an instance of Erudin Library cleared before I could progress to the part where I can get my update from DB. Luckily Emarald had an open instance of the Library so I zoned Adurj and Voltaan in and got the update in short order for both. A quick trip to DB to get my update and that was it for me for the evening. I had achieved what I had set out to do, so logged to go race in NFS:Undercover.

There’s one thing about the whole turning your Myth into an enervated version that I really don’t like is the fact that once you have your weapon changed over, I think it changes from being a mythical to a fabled version. I’m not 100% sure on that but I have made an effort to inspect a fair few people who have theirs and I haven’t seen a myth version yet. If this is the case, I don’t like it. Mythical items I know were supposed to be items where only one or two of them ever appeared in the world like the old scrying pool house item from some froglokky quest an age ago. But when they brought out the mythical weapons it was finally possible to get your hands on a Mythical item. Now I know it lost a fair bit of its exclusivity as before too long everyman and their warg had one. But the thing is, I worked hard for mine at a time when they were very hard to get, before the raid mobs you had to kill to get the updates had not been nerfed to pussycat status. The raid zones were a real challenge in RoK because bear in mind TSO had not come out, there was no shard armour only RoK gear. As such, those who got their myths in that stage of the game, really do deserve to keep the status of a mythical weapon as we completed real real tough content with crappy gear from the RoK expansion. Yup, getting myth updates back then in the early days of RoK was indeed a challenge. /rantoff.

What other big news? Oh yeah, EQ2 is going free to play (“FTP”). They are pretty much going to make the game pre level 80 free and then if you want the Sentinels Fate expansion and the ability to get to 90th level, you pay monthly. I reckon SoE have been pretty clever about this and I was discussing this very matter with Jahf last night. This way they will probably get a lot of returning players who have been out of the game for an age and do not see the benefit of forking out loadsamoney to see if they still like it. But in all reality, how many people are going to get to 80 and hanging round their guildhall, think “Ok, right. That’s it, reached the top level. 80th... Ooh, what’s that nice armour that 90th level guildy is wearing? Ooh, that’s a nice weapon”. And I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to work out that eventually a fair amount of those people who initially intended not to progress, buy the expansion and start playing monthly [Hang on a sec. Do rocket scientists play EQ2? – Ed]. For players like me it won’t make any difference really. I need the SF content and as such I will continue to pay for it. FTP EQ2. Personally I think it’s a good idea. Like I said it won’t affect me too much, but it may swell the population of the game again.

Right-o. Until next time.

Be well.

Screenie Update

It's been a while since we've had some screenshots here, so here goes...

 The Conservatory, Sentinels Fate Instance

Little & Large (Angur & Floh)

Acolytes of Valor instance group

Camel (old screeny but Camels are fun!)

Halas

Firemyst Gully

Be well.

Return of the Bard

It’s been a while eh? Well, I decided to make my two weeks off exactly that, two weeks off from doing all the normal stuff I do. That included blogging, so apologies to anyone who was waiting for the next instalment. Even though I have been off, obviously gaming is a fun activity and not work, so I’ve been doing plenty of that! [So blogging is work is it? Get real, you're just lazy - Ed] I’ve played a fair amount of EQ2, a tiny bit of Mass Effect, dug out an old game I forgot I had purchased an age ago on STEAM and so downloaded NFS:Undercover and have been spending quite a bit of time on that. Also I’ve been doing a lot of family stuff, but not nearly as much as we had hoped over my two weeks off as my little one has been quite ill for most of my holiday. Meaning we were stuck in most of the time trying to regulate her temperature whilst it was over 40degrees C outside. What else? Oh yeah, it was Wifeys birthday and I got her the two best presents ever. A new graphics card and a kitten! Obviously not part of the same present :) In addition to this it was our Wedding Anniversary (9 years) which we both completely forgot about until about lunch time when my wife called me over saying “Oh, hunny, Happy Anniversary”. Neither of us mark the passing of such events with much excitement. We know we are going to be together forever, so why celebrate every little year as an achievement? Luckily, we both feel the same way or I could have been in a load of the proverbial brown stuff. 

What else? Oh yeah, my older daughter got bored and started her own business making refreshing drinks and cakes to sell round the pool which went down really well with the tourists and actually made her a nice little packet. Although, being only eight she did split several times during the week from her business partner and friend who lives up the road over diversification and a difference of opinion (they are kids..they fell out). It’s a tough world the business world!

There’s more. We had two MotoGP races whilst I was on leave and they saw the return of Valentino Rossi riding with a still broken, but set and pinned tibia. Pretty amazing stuff these guys are made of. Unless you have ridden a motorcycle the physical demands at just a little over cruise speed are quite severe, so when racing at the speeds these guys do you are experiencing huge amounts of ‘G’ through corners and having to steer the bike partially with your feet (it’s true and it works) I guess that must be pretty uncomfortable if you have a compound fracture. Especially when it was expected he should be out of action for another 6 weeks yet. Tough guys, made of stern stuff. Anyhow, Rossi did really well with his comeback finishing 4^th and 3^rd respectively. Laguna Seca was a fantastic race as ever and a great show put on by our friends across the pond. Congratulations to Nicky Hayden who finished fourth at his home Grand Prix and Ben Spies who finished 5^th. Amazing rides (even if they were both disappointed with the result!).

On to the important stuff. Gaming. EQ2 is the best place to start. I had been spending quite a lot of time levelling my Shadowknight (“Angur”) for various reasons and ploughed him from level 35 to level 76 in a little over a week. I am really enjoying playing the SK. I like the versatility and the extra ‘tools’ they seem to have over my Guardian (my only other ‘real’ tank). I also have a load of great Tier 9 gear already for him. But as much as I am enjoying playing him, I need to get a toon to 90 and quickly. So I decided to shelve Angur for the time being and concentrate getting Adurj up to 90^th. The reason I am concentrating on getting him levelled is that the raiding collective I hang with are starting up their calendar again in August and I wanted to be ready to start doing some tier 9 raids with them.

So, Adurj is now sitting at 88^th level with just two more to go. His AAs are a little behind still and need a little work on, but he has all the required skills maxed there. The rest is just dressing. I’ve been spending quite a lot of time two-boxing Voltaan and Adurj through the Sundered Frontier timelines and last night I started the questlines in Stonebrunt Highlands. After checking my quest journal, I knew I had done a lot of quests in SF but I didn’t realise I had done 155! That’s a lot of quests for a zone. I’m not too sure about Moors (I kinda hated that place so rarely quested there) but I know in RoK expansion each zone only had about 80 quests. Although there were a lot more overland zones available. So, I started the Stonebrunt questlines and finished the first round of quests from Moonfield Hamlet before I logged last night. I don’t know if I am getting jaded with the way EQ2 runs quests but it really does seem there is no getting away from the “Go here, collect this” type of quest. I did complete one quest that made me smile. I liked the idea but the execution and programming was appalling. Basically you are required to equip a wand in your charm slot then that in turn blurs your vision and allows you to see the nodes you need to gather to complete the quest. However, as well as blurring your vision (only very slightly I found) the wand also ‘steers’ you towards the nodes. Which is a nice idea, I like it. If they could get it to work correctly. That darn wand had me running of cliffs, dragging Adurj of a cliff (twice), and gaining aggro at every turn. Nice idea, but no banana SoE. I’ve been hitting a few instances too, but in all honesty I am trying to stay away from groups on Adurj (although I have on occasion and obviously still group with my other toons). I always seem to be unlucky and get a group where I die a lot and when you are trying to level up the debt is not nice at all.

Another development is that I have stopped running the raids at AoV. I made a conscious decision that with so little time online (compared to what time online is required to actually progress) I needed to concentrate on progressing my own toons instead of trying to help out others. I know my efforts were appreciated by a fair few people and to them I’m sorry the party ended, but I was running raids and I was pretty much the only one who was not 90^th and was coming away from those raids with a load of debt. I just need to use what little time I have online a little more selfishly for a while. I’m online most evenings, but I rarely get to spend a ‘whole’ evening playing. I’m not sure why I bother to group anymore! The last 3 or 4 groups I have had, I have had to leave early before zone completion due to real life stuff. I guess at some point I’m going to have to admit I don’t have the time to play an MMO anymore. But not just yet.

So, what’s up and coming? Well, Adurj needs to get to 90. I need to enervate his mythical weapon and try and get some better kit so that he can start raiding again. I’d ideally like to get Volt and Angur up there too, but I’m not sure that’s ever going to happen with the time I have. Maybe in the winter when it’s not so sunny outside and I’m stuck in the house a bit more. I’m wondering if the time has come to concentrate on just one toon. I’m not so sure I can do this as I really do have different ideas about what I want to play when I log on, ye know? I mean sometimes I’d rather be pummelling some ones face with my fists than singing them a song. For me it’s about immersion and I just can’t play the same toon all the time. I get bored or the type of toon doesn’t fit how I am feeling my play style will be for that day. BUT, and as you can see it’s a big but, I’m more than aware I really do not have time to spend in game too much anymore. I guess I’ll have to decide. One well kitted toon, or several mediocre toons. Hmm, something to think about. More gaming next post as lunch is over. Back to work.

Be well.

On Hols

Hi! Guess I am on my hols..will be back with bloggage in a day or two.

Be well.

Fun distractions

A cool night in game last night. I initially logged in and my wife wanted to get a group together to take advantage of us both having our babies at a similar level and to make sure we cleared the Sinking Sands of all the AA we could whilst we are at the right level. So we toddled off to The Hidden Cache first after we had gotten a group together and with our mentored down 90 Zerker tanking things went pretty quickly. Luckily. We finished there and pretty much as we finished I got a tell from a guildy reminding me I was supposed to be helping one group WoE on Adurj. With apologies I logged to Adurj ready for some raid fun.

Not a bad run through WoE at all. Everyone brought their ‘A’ game and we had a load of fun. It was a quick run, but even so we still didn’t finish as our Tank had to rush of to do some RL stuff after the Fire Guy so we are finishing tonight. I was really chuffed with the session. I rolled for patterns for my baby SK who I fully plan to be of the right level to use gear from there soon, and he won four of them! In fact everyone that dropped and no one else was rolling for the other classes listed on the pattern. So I got them all. Not bad from one run. I wonder what will happen tonight when we go in to finish it. Would be nice to get boots, shoulders and forearms too ;) Obviously, if someone from last night decides to roll on a challenging class to SK on the patterns I will step aside as I have already won the four pieces. But if there is no competition, it would be great to have full tier 3 armour waiting for Angur. Even if I have some missing pieces, it’s no biggy. I’m sure I’ll be running WoE a few times more before Angur is 80.

Following WoE I switched to Angur and Voltaan to run through some more Sinking Sands stuff as a duo. I headed through the Clefts of Rujark and to The Scornfeather Roost. However, when I got to the first named I thought that I may struggle. Luckily though as I was contemplating the impending death of my toons my buddy Jahf popped me a /tell and he came to join me on his Warden. Things went pretty smooth after that. Albeit very slowly. Not because we were struggling, not at all. But because when Jahf and I get together we seem to spend a huge amount of time chatting and as I was tanking and am easily (and in this case happily) distracted we spent quite a bit of time just standing around talking. Despite my lucky run through WoE this was the best part of the night for me. As ever, I had a blast catching up with me mate from across the pond.

Tonight? Well it’s my last day at work for two weeks, so I intend to have a real late one, pushing baby SK and my sleep pattern to the limits and hopefully grabbing him a few more tier 3 armour patterns from WoE and more AA and levels. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Until next time,

Be well.

Heritage

Completed four heritage quests on my baby Shadowknight last night. Along with my wife on her mini-Coercer ‘Floh Ryder’ and me two boxing Voltaan and Angur we pretty much spent only three hours on getting them all completed. First off was a trip to The Tower of Drafling (Sp?) to finish of the ‘By Hook or by Crook’ HQ after we had started it the previous day. Yet again (I always do this) I had forgotten that there was a lock out from the Tower the first time you visit it on the quest.

We then headed out in to Enchanted Lands to do the ‘Foombys Stolen Goods’ HQ. Such a great and quick HQ this. Or so I thought. I really had forgotten the PITA that is waiting for Chomper to spawn in his lake near the start of the quest. There was another group waiting for him to spawn, so we pretty much had to wait two spawn patterns before we got our chance at him. The quest overall because of this took a little longer than normal, but it still left plenty of time to do some more HQs.

Then it was off to Zek. I had already started the ‘Operation Greenhood’ quest that is a pre-requisite to the ‘Rescue of the Greenhoods’ HQ on Angur, but wifey hadn’t done any of them so we completed the quests from start to finish. Of course whilst running around for the Glademaster we also picked up the ‘Training is a Shield’ HQ at the Zek quarry. We were pretty lucky in that nearing the end of the pre-requisite stages before you head in to Death Fyst Citadel, Sentry Goorlux was already up, so we didn’t have to wait the 30 mins to an hour that it takes for him to spawn.

DFC went pretty smoothly and quickly apart from the end when I forgot that if you don’t kill the Bloodguards they all come when you pull Fyst. Obviously the ensuing panic when I saw twenty mobs, not one running towards me meant the first death of the evening..Sorry Floh! We both picked up some nice AA from the nameds and locationals in there and of course from the whole evenings HQ sessions. In addition to this Angur is the perfect level to use the Short sword of Ykesha and the Shiny Brass Shield was also a good upgrade. It’s actually the first time I have ever completed those quests and used the items given to me. I was pretty chuffed about that.

It seems a bit silly sometimes to me that I am spending so much of my time on an alt when my Dirgey main is still only at 86th level, but I’m trying to stop worrying about progression and concentrating on completing content that I truly enjoy. Admittedly I only get about 5 to 6 hours play time a week on EQ2 nowadays but that’s still 5 or 6 lost hours of my life if I am doing stuff I don’t particularly enjoy.

Mass Effect is progressing nicely too. I have pretty much finished the three initial ‘off base’ missions in my hunt for Seren on my main account. I have though, in a bid to experiment a bit with the game, started a new career with a different toon type. This time instead of the Vanguard I tried a basic soldier, and loved it. I am debating currently whether to catch that toon up to the stage I am at with my Vanguard and make it my main career. Not decided yet though.

Until next time,

Be well.

An Englishmans Castle

Disturbing news today. My wives best friend woke this morning to find that during the night she and her family had apparently been gassed rendering them in a deep sleep and then burgled. They even took her kids clothes that had been ironed. The scary thing though is the supposedly growing use of gas in such incidents here on the southern coast of Spain. Having been in Law Enforcement most of my working life I am all too aware of the risks of being burgled and also that even though it is a common offence it is still one of the most invasive nasty things that can happen to a person.

There’s an old saying where I come from, "An Englishmans home is his castle". I’m sure the sentiment is the same throughout the world. If you own a house, you naturally feel comfortable and probably secure in it. This is what is so disturbing about the offence of burglary. It is a truly invasive crime that has a huge knock on effect mentally for the victim. It sends the message, “You thought you were safe. You are not”. Now add this new phenomenon to an already horrendous crime and you enter in to a whole new ball game.

I know anything can happen in a tussle, and even the toughest of people can be brought down by bad luck alone. But I like to think that if anyone broke in to my house, they would be sorry about it. You can make your own luck you see. I’m no stranger to physical conflict. I used to do it regularly and in fact I came across violence almost daily in my work. I have lost count of the amount of times I have had a knife pulled on me and been slashed at or stabbed at, lost count of the amount of times I have been assaulted, punched, kicked, stomped on, headbutted, had boiling water thrown at me, oh yeah and boiling fat. That’s just to name a few of what I have experienced. And I have never lost an encounter. Out of the probable thousands of encounters I have always come out on top. So I reckon I might have a bit of a chance against a burglar, and even if they bring two or three of their mates (as long as firearms weren’t involved). But this new thing of gassing people is scary if it turns out to be true. It makes the most competent of people sitting ducks all in a row. For the burglars it really must be like shooting fish in a barrel.

What‘s even scarier though is the circumstances in this particular case. For all of the stuff that was taken, you would need at least three people. Meaning three strangers were wandering around her house. Now for the scary part. She is a single Mum to three young kids. All of them were in the house. Her young daughter is blonde with beautiful blue eyes. Living on the coast here, we all know that that particular look of child is much sought after by child kidnapping rings from Europe and Africa. Her daughter was asleep in her bed and there were at least three people in her house. They could have taken her children without her knowing a thing until she finally awoke all groggy the next morning to find them gone. Absolutely terrifying thought.

Something one must always consider in situations such as this is the fact the occupants may not actually have been gassed. It is a natural human reaction to attempt to reason and people simply struggle to believe that they had burglars inches from them in their house, but did not wake up. It is a very difficult concept to understand. But think about it. If you have a husband/wife/partner at some point in your relationship I bet you have had to wake them up and not found it as easy as you had thought. It’s simple. It can come down to just two things. We sleep very heavily at times and some burglars are sadly very very good at their jobs. I don’t know if this is a real phenomenon or not, but until we know for sure we must treat it as real.

The best defence against a burglar, even this new type of burglary? Yup, you got it. A yappy dog. It doesn’t have to be a huge Rottweiler, just something that makes a lot of noise whenever someone approaches your house. Best deterrent ever. It wakes you and makes the burglar think twice. It may not stop you getting burgled if you have something inside they really really want. But it has a high chance of pushing them on to a different property. And if they do decide to still go ahead with it, at least you have forewarning. I have no doubt if gas is used then a gas that incapacitates dogs also would be used. But it doesn’t stop the dog barking as they approach your property, or start setting their equipment up outside ready to ‘gas’ you. Yeah, your dog might be gassed too, but they can still give fair warning.

Anyhow, until next time...

Be safe & Be well.

Lethargy

I’m getting bored of EQ2 again. This expansion really has failed to grab me to the same extent of RoK and those prior. I stuck through TSO, which was another expansion I didn’t particularly enjoy and now with another expansion I think is ‘OK’ but certainly not fantastic and throw in my busy real life and I’m struggling to gain the enthusiasm to keep going. It’s probably one of the main reasons I am struggling to level. I guess the content’s there plenty enough, it’s just that I am not over enthused about diving in to it. It may be that it is because I’ve done it all before. Not the exact content of course and there are a few spiffy changes been made recently, but I mean I have done the levelling thing, then the clamour for better equipment, then the raiding and so on. I’ve been through those patterns before, many many times. I guess I am just getting a bit jaded. Of the new expansion that is.

Last night saw me, Ema, Jahf and a couple of others, Seareal (a new acquaintance of my wife) and Lucyndra (an alt of a guildy of mine) rampage through firstly Cazic Thule, then Rivervale to take maximum benefit from the double exp weekend [Why oh why didn’t you use Adurj?!? He needs the XP – Ed]. I must admit, it was a bit of a pull and ‘aoe’ fest as my SK, ‘Angur Managmunt’ went from level 35 to 48 in one day with Voltaan leading the way, mentored. Yeah my AAs suffered a fair amount, but I will gain those back questing at a later stage and I plan on running through at least 4 HQs tonight so that should help too. I’m really enjoying my SK. I have a level 80 tank, Killzum my Guardian but he got shelved shortly after release of RoK. I’ve noticed in guild even though we have a fair few tanks, quite a few of them now spend a lot of time on their alts. Last couple of guild groups I have had we have had to wait some time for a tanky. So I thought I would try to level a tank I enjoy playing. I know I have Voltaan my bruiser who is now nearly 85th level and I actually still love playing him, but let’s face it unless he has the right equipment it’s tough for healers to keep him up in top tier zones.

Anyhow, back on to the main subject. So last night I had a great blast. It was lower level content of course and I really enjoyed it, as I always do. I’m starting to think that I just ‘clicked’ with the expansions up to RoK as I have no boredom issue when doing old content. It’s the new stuff. I guess I will find a new game, or just continually create new toons to stay in the content I truly enjoy.

There is of course always Lotro. I still love that game but it has been a while since I have logged in. Also I never really got to grips with the community there. The game and content are excellent and it’s now FTP so there is no reason why I shouldn’t head back and perhaps make more of an effort getting involved and trying to find some like minded players and a home there.

Until I make a decision, I have my SK to keep playing with, Adurj to try and level when I can be bothered and of course Mass Effect (which is going brilliantly btw!).

Be well.