EQ2 Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Tales of the Aggronaut

Pre-Endgame Game

October 29, 2013 by Belghast

Limited Time Stuff

First off I guess let me open todays post with a complaint. I really had nothing much to talk about as I sat down at the keyboard, so I did what I normally do and sifted through my RSS feed. I spent most of yesterday super busy and really did not have time to read anything much. One of the first posts was over on Rift Junkies talking about how apparently there was a new mount available for only four hours on the Rift store. They are apparently calling this unstable artifacts, which is a clever excuse to make something super limited that costs a hell of a lot on the store.

I am not against the 2700 credit price tag, but I am against the concept of limited time items. I hate when something goes into game only to be pulled out swiftly keeping anyone else from getting the item. I honestly don’t care about the red Kirin at all, because I think the mounts are ugly, but for me it is more a principle of it. When a game starts doing one time only things, I really lose interest quickly. I get extremely frustrated anymore when I am asked to play a game on someone else’s schedule. With the recent rapidly expiring world event each phase lasting only two days… this seems to be the direction that Rift wants to move in.

The more of this type of content goes into the game the less and less interested I am in it. There are so many things about Guild Wars 2 that I think I would enjoy, but the fact that content expires roughly every two weeks keeps me from wanting to dig in and try it. I don’t want to ONLY play this one game, and in order to farm up every new thing in the world… I would really have to do just that. The whole playing the same game every single night concept just seems foreign to me. There are so many different games I want to experience, so knowing I will go into a game missing out on things… makes me think my time is better spent elsewhere.

Pre-Endgame Game

I guess while I am complaining, I might as well not stop with Rift. Onwards to FInal Fantasy A Realm Reborn! We absolutely lucked out as a guild and had eight of us reaching 50 within a few days of each other. Well that is not true I guess, we had one super impatient gamer rush through to the end game and sit there without any additional support for about two weeks. However the majority of us arrived at the end game at roughly the same time. This made the sequence of three eight man instances seem not that horrible in part because it was fresh content for all of us. However now that we have another three characters up to 50, I am realizing what a slog it really is.

So much of the end of the main storyline in FFXIV reminds me of the trials and tribulations of having to key players for various raid instances in both EQ and WoW. Be warned there will be some spoilers, so if you care about that sort of thing, I would stop reading. I will try my best to do as few as possible, but it is going to happen. Essentially when you hit 49 you start down a sequence of events that leads to the finishing of the main storyline. The first of these is Cape Westwind, yet another trial. We have done this now three times… and quite honestly I cannot tell you exactly how the mechanics work. The biggest pain is getting eight players online at the same time.

Next you run through a few quests and end up unlocking Castrum Meridianum… which is surprise surprise another eight man dungeon. This takes a little over an hours time normally if you are not doing the speed run chicanery… and now that every mob in the instance drops decent money there really is no reason why you would. These places are decent money. Once you finish up in there, you do a few more quests and wind up stalled on The Praetorium… yet another 8 man dungeon. This one takes quite a bit longer than the previous one and is a wee bit trickier at times. Finally after finishing this sequence of events you can finish the main storyline and unlock Amdapor Keep.

We have been working our way through these for Cyl, Opo and Tivo… and the problem with an eight man dungeon is trying to accommodate eight different play schedules. We really only seem to have time to do one of the dungeons in the sequence per night. Last night we were trying to figure out when we could pull together a group next… and the problem is we are unlikely to be able to get ALL of the necessary players online until next week sometime. As we started going through the days, there was one player that could not attend on each of the nights. While the final storyline is extremely cool… it just seems like a lot of bullshit to have to slog through to even begin the end game grind.

Norrath Calling

Towards the end of the night I ended up logging out of FFXIV and popping into EQ2 for a bit. I have said it before, and I will say it again… sooner or later I always return to playing EQ2. I am not sure if I am ready to be back in it yet, but I did some questing out in Withered Lands and enjoyed the relaxed pace. My friend that recently returned was telling me excitedly about the guilds plans to start doing heroics, and while I think that is cool I don’t want anyone to factor me in their gaming decisions yet. I already have a game where I am a key resource for running instances… I really don’t want another one.

That is not to say that I don’t enjoy tanking dungeons, because I do… otherwise I wouldn’t keep returning to playing that role. I just find that tanking takes more out of me than it used to. I cannot chain run instances like I once could. So I find myself needing something else to play so I can have a bit of peace and quiet… and more importantly downtime. Everquest 2 has always been a good filler of this niche. I would like to get my Shadowknight up to 95 so I can be prepared for the new content when it releases as well. I still feel like in many ways I am running from WoW, because I know that will only end up in tears of frustration. I continue to ignore its sirens call by playing other things… just not sure how long that will work.

Halloween 2013

October 19, 2013 by Belghast

Spooky Pasta!

One of the things I love in the various MMOs I play or have played… are the varried Holiday events. Some of them make an extreme effort to fit them into the lore of their world, and others just cut and paste a real world tradition onto their land. Both have their merits and both are enjoyable so long as they don’t involve too much grinding. Each game seems to pick and choose holidays, but there are two that every game seems to have… Christmas and of course Halloween.

Halloween time is generally my favorite holiday because the traditions itself usually involve killing lots of dark denizens of the night. Additionally the playing dress up theme usually means some cool weapon and armor skins that you can use throughout the rest of the year. Currently we are in the run up to Halloween itself, and as a result pretty much every MMO has some form of event going on marking the holiday. Going to take a few minutes this morning to talk about some of the cooler ones.

Nights of the Dead

This event runs in Everquest 2 from 10/15 through 11/11 and is probably the grand daddy of all Halloween events. Each year they keep adding new content, but still leaving all of the old content in place. Zam has a really great guide to the various quests and events. If you are one of the new to EQ2 folks who just partook of the free level 85 event… I highly suggest checking it out. However even with a brand new account you can still participate in most of the fun. My personal favorite event is the hedge maze that drops lots of nifty cosmetic gear.

Blood and Madness

Guild Wars 2 supposedly has a really amazing event called Blood and Madness that kicked off on October 15th that involved a series of limited time events (one day only) finally culminating in a big event that only exists Halloween night. Dulfy has a pretty comprehensive guild to the events, but for the most part if you are not already doing this series you have missed out this year. This has been my key bitch about Guild Wars 2 to date… I hate the concept of short run limited time events. The amount of busy work needed really only allows someone who ONLY plays GW2 to keep up… and because of this I just can’t be bothered to attempt it. I would love to see this as a long term event that ran the entire length of the holiday, but until then it will be out of my reach.

Autumn Harvest

Rift has an event called Autumn Harvest that starts on October 17th and runs through Halloween and potentially a little bit past. They have chosen to focus on the harvest aspect of the holiday and as such have sent you to a special version of the Realm of the Fae where you help Atrophinius and his minions bring in the amber sap harvest. There are a ton of cool things you can get, including a phantom version of several popular mounts. The coolest feature of the event however is that you can get these short time use potions that make tons of artifacts show up on the ground in the realm of the fae. This is a huge catch up on collections event. This year around there are a ton of new items to be gotten and you can check out this preview guide on Rift Junkies.

Hallow’s End

Hallow’s End is an event that occurs in World of Warcraft from October 18th through November 1st. There are tons of nifty things going on like trick or treating, but the meat and potatoes of the event is the Scarlet Monastery Headless Horseman instance. I have a love/hate relationship with this holiday. Every year it has been available (and that I have been playing wow) I have participated in the event… all for a shot at the extremely awesome flying headless horseman mount. Every single year I have come up empty handed. When a game company places an item in an event, like a mount… that is usable every day… and makes it a super rare random drop… I want to stab them.

All Saints’ Wake

Currently there is an event going on over in FFXIV that is completely new to me. All Saints’ Wake started a little early, but was intended to run from October 18th through November 1st. All of the time zones get a little discombobulated in the translation. While I am not partaken in the event yet, so far the other one I have seen has been what I would call “Holiday-Lite” in that there is a FATE going on that awards some sort of currency that you then use to purchase things off a vendor. Since the vanity gear system is not in place yet, this makes the things you can acquire super limited, but I plan on gathering them up just in case. One of the most humorous observations from last night is that apparently the Pumpkin helms… are repaired by Cullinarians.

The Rundown

That is the rundown of the big ones I know of that are going on, but like I said in the first part of the post… this is the one holiday that pretty much EVERY MMO celebrates. I can even remember in Hellgate: London there being a Halloween event of sorts that took its form in a Guy Fawkes day celebration… that happened to have a lot of Halloween themed stuff. I would be curious to hear about any events that are your favorite that I missed.

Sponsors Unite

October 2, 2013 by Belghast

Class of 2013

Yesterday the 2013 Newbie Blogger Initiative officially kicked off and the new blogs are starting to trickle into the forum. Yesterday I updated my blogroll to include the five blogs that had signed up to date, and over the night another two have joined the fray. Here is hoping that the effort will continue to grow throughout the month. Last time we ended up with I believe 110 new blogs starting the process, so we have a long ways to go before we see those numbers.

I will update my blogroll accordingly later today… but currently this years crop looks a little something like this…

Check them out and give them some link love.

Sponsors Unite

Similarly, yesterday kicked off quite a number of “advice” posts from the sponsors. Like always these varied in topic greatly covering general tips, where to find inspiration, and various technical tidbits. I am sure in the coming days we will be seeing a lot more of these posts but so far here is the run down of topics that were posted as of this morning.

I am sure as the month rolls on, we will see quite a few more sponsor posts as well. I think for the first day, the program was pretty well represented. My goal is to do a short daily synopsis of what all has been happening on the days I am not posting an advice article myself.

Heroic Characters

A few days ago I had posted about the fact that October 1st was the beginning of the ability to create a free Heroic Character in Everquest 2. Most of us initially thought this was for subscribers only… or in EQ2 nomenclature “Gold Members”. However yesterday Stargrace of MMO Quests pointed out that ANYONE can log in and create a free level 85 character during the October 1st – October 15th period. Additionally they have once again tightened the reins of the free to play restrictions. Previously it was extremely frustrating to play a free to play character, because you could not equip Legendary or higher items… which meant that essentially you could not equip anything that came from a dungeon or most world drops.

With the introduction of Heroic Characters, all of these item locks are gone… as are the various items that were sold on the store to unlock the ability to equip them. Additionally as of yesterdays patch… much like they did in the past with other expansions… Destiny of Velious is now included for free. This gives you access to content up to level 95, and covers all of the newer zones added into the game. They have also broken up the Age of Discovery features into bite sized chunks that allow you to gobble up only the pieces you want, for example you can buy access to mercenaries only, or just the beastlord class. Since they are removing some of the appeal for remaining a gold member, they have added in a permanent +15% coin loot bonus and +10% mount speed bonus to all existing gold members. They have also mentioned they will be adding more perks into the equation to keep maintaining gold level a valuable thing.

The Swash and Berserker

Wanting to take advantage of the free promotion, I logged in both of my accounts last night and created and or upsized characters on each. For some time I had been trying to level a dps character on my main account, and had created Belgrifter a Ratonga Swashbuckler. Namely the Swash is a very high survival dps, and I was having a decent time leveling him. Ultimately I ran into the same roadblock I ran into with all of my characters however. Once you have had flight in EQ2, you simply do not want to level a character without it. So essentially I was stuck with a decision… either grind up tradeskills or grind up levels. I managed to push him up to 55 before something shiny caught my eye and I abandoned the effort.

Since I could not really see myself returning to playing him until I had flight… I decided to go ahead and use that accounts token to super size my Ratonga. The gear that they give you is extremely nice… far nicer than the gear I have ever started velious content in before. I seriously doubt if I will replace any of it during the Othimir quests, it seems to be on par with that level of item. The weapon choices were a little wonky, giving me a sword and a mace… but I can live with that. The big problem is I have NEVER used a mace on my rat… but they auto leveled all of my weapon skills for me… so that really is not a problem.

If you look at the image from the above paragraph you will see Belglaive my new 85 Iksar Bezerker. On my second account I mostly had support classes, as I used to regularly dual box before the release of Mercenaries. As a result I really did not have anything “tanky” on that account. If I ever wanted to dual box again, I figure it would end up extremely handy to have access to a tank, and Bezerker is the one I have never really played to high levels. I have a very small dwarven one on my main account, but I think he is somewhere in the 30s. The best thing is… the changes give me full access again to my Dark Elf Warden, since I had stopped playing him due to the item restrictions and not wanting to maintain a second subscription.

Wrapping Up

The ability to create a free level 85 character is an extremely amazing offer. If you have ever considered playing EQ2, I highly suggest you make an account during the 1-15 period and create a level 85 even if you do not intend to play it right now. You can do a lot of cool stuff with an 85, and even use it to feed lower level characters items. I have always loved EQ2, and I will admit the prospect of fresh high level characters has gotten me pumped about playing it some again. Just not sure how often I will do so… given my current addiction to Final Fantasy XIV. If you do end up rolling characters, I highly suggest Antonia Bayle the Roleplaying server. It has probably the best community I have seen in any game… other than potentially Landroval in LOTRO.

Nostalgia Wins

June 22, 2012 by Belghast

Of all the topics I thought I would be blogging about, it is pretty safe to assume this is the last one I ever expected to be writing. However over the last couple of weeks I have been giving in to my nostalgia, and I feel like I need to come clean about it. About a week before my birthday, I found my way onto the guild mumble, in the guise of helping a long time friend test their mumble connection. It was not long before a few others showed up, and we had a lively little discussion going.

When you get a bunch of old friends together, sooner or later they are going to start talking about the “good ole days”. While none of us were actively playing it, those cherished times were all raids in World of Warcraft. Over the last year and a half, since leaving the game, it has pretty much been my regular whipping boy. I’ve said so much, and blamed so many things on the game and its players, but at the end of the day we really did have some amazing times there. It wasn’t long before I found myself accepting a Scroll of Resurrection, and reactivating my account.

Sealing the Rift

I expected that much like reactivating Rift, this was going to be one of my short lived whims. I had a good deal of fun wandering around Telara for about a week, before the same feeling from before had set in. Rift is without a doubt technically superior to every game on the market. It has every feature I could ever possibly want in an MMO. The problem is that once again I find myself not really caring about the world of Telara and its two warring factions.

What hooked me on MMOs all those years ago, was this always on and deeply intricate fantasy world to explore. Norrath will always be my first love, with its interesting races, brooding gods, and vast landscapes. I can remember spending hours, reading quests, trying to gather up every little tidbit of this rich world. Years later I developed the same connection to the land of Azeroth. The setting was already familiar to me, and knowing a little bit about it already, made World of Warcraft and its lore all the more addictive.

For reasons I don’t quite understand, I just can’t seem to develop the same connection with the races and world of Telara. The game does everything right, and has every bells and whistles I could ever want in an MMO, especially now that they are adding mentoring. At the end of the day however, I just don’t really care about my characters the same way I normally do in these games.

Home is never the same

So in a fit of nostalgia I have been playing WoW once more, and I have to say I am enjoying myself quite a bit. I think it is a testament to just how good a game it is, that I can return after almost 2 years, and a ton of frustration and bad feelings towards Blizzard, and be able to have fun. I honestly had the intention of never playing the game again. I had mixed emotions about trying to “return home”, and the ramifications that it might mean.

So much has changed, the guild I spent seven years building up is very similar, but it is definitely not the same guild I left. Little things have changed, gone are a good number of the people I cherished the most, and with them some of the easy banter that used to go on in guild chat each night. However, there are moments, especially on raid nights when some of the veterans show up, that things return back to “normal” for a bit, or at least the normal I remember.

In addition to folks that have moved on like I did, there are tons of new names and faces that I don’t know. I used to pride myself on trying to know everyone in “my” guild, but truth is from the moment I passed on the hat that guild stopped existing anywhere other than my mind. I think this is all the more noticeable by the fact that Argent Dawn once again is going through the pre-expansion doldrums. The guild is still a great group of people, just not as outwardly friendly as it once was.

Normal is a moving target

I’ve hit on this multiple times, but the truth is while it feels like the guild has changed, it might simply be because I myself have changed. When I was last wearing the green and black of House Stalwart, I was a burnt out Guild and Raid leader, unable to stand the thought of playing the game anymore. I have realized that a good bit of that frustration that built up was because my reality was changing around me.

When I built up House Stalwart into what it was, I was a relatively unhappy code monkey, working under a boss with a penchant for passive aggressive micro-management. Nothing I did was ever good enough, and I felt like I had no control over my work world. At the same time there was a good deal of turmoil in my personal life. During a five year stretch, we lost something like 15 family members. The first and worst of these was the suicide of my nephew.

Everything simply felt wrong, and out of control. I think in a way I built up House Stalwart to be this stable, safe environment to hide out in. Over time my life started to shift back into normality, I didn’t need my support structure as much as I once did. I changed jobs leaving the constant stress, feelings of inadequacy and that horrible boss behind. The problem is, I had built a guild full of great people who had come to need me that I did not want to let down.

The more responsibility I had thrust upon me in the real world, the less I wanted to deal with it in the game world. So when I moved jobs, to one I had more of a direct role contributing to, I pushed back against being the main tank. When I had a coworker leave, and have to pick up the slack and essentially do two jobs at the same time, I pushed back against raid leadership. As I picked up some management responsibilities, I pushed back against guild leadership eventually left the game. So it seems impossible to separate the frustrations I had with the game, from the changes I was going through outside of it.

Am I really back?

So over the last week I have been getting adjusted to the game again. I find myself actually looking forward to going home and playing at night. More than anything that is something that has been missing for awhile. While I have found enjoyment in whatever I was playing, the actual drive to log in and play has been gone. Now I think ahead about what I might accomplish each evening, and it is refreshing.

There is a question my friends keep asking that I don’t have an honest answer for yet. I am not sure if I am really back, or honestly what being back even means. I figure if I am actually playing a month from now, then chances are I will be playing for awhile. I am enjoying this present trip down memory lane in the meantime. Last night I soloed most of AQ40 and AQ20, then later duoed a good chunk of the Black Temple. I am enjoying the experience of rediscovering this game I used to love so much, with no expectations.

I am having a blast playing my Deathknight, probably more than I have since originally leaving the game. I am not really sure how to quantify it, but World of Warcraft does melee right. I’ve played melee characters in roughly a dozen games since leaving wow, and in every case they didn’t quite feel right. They either were too simplistic, too slow paced, or somehow didn’t truly capture the fun nature of swinging a weapon at a monster. I have to think that it is all the attention to detail and smooth animations that make playing a melee just feel correct.

Future uncertain

Right now I am not sure what my gaming future will bring. There are so many big games on the horizon, and I am sure I will play several of them. I am not sure if WoW will stick, or if I will just float along to the next big thing. Currently I have access to WoW, Pandaria Beta, Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, Diablo 3, Rift and Everquest II. So far however, the only two I am actually logging into are WoW and EQ2. In each case, those are the two universes I am most nostalgic about. I guess that no matter what I say or do, I will always love Norrath and Azeroth. It has been just as shocking to myself, as it has been to my friends that I am back in WoW.