Le`Bard Connection

On Hold...

2011-11-10T02:45:00.000-08:00

Well, try as I might, I just can't seem to gather the time or enthusiasm to get blogging at the moment. Things haven't stopped for me in life or EQ2 and all is still progressing nicely. It's just that when I find I have time to write, I am spending it writing my book and not my blog. So, I'm not abondoning ole bloggy, just putting her on hold for a while. I'll say "see you soon", although to be honest, I'm not sure how 'soon' that will be.

Be well.

Back to the Future

2011-10-17T11:52:00.000-07:00

It’s not unexpected (to me) that I’ve been away from blogging for a while. Of all my non essential duties in life, sadly it’s one of the first to get the ‘heave-ho’ for a while if things get busy for me. It’s simple really. I can’t shirk on time with my family and my other hobbies (like spending time with Ema, and gaming) takes up the little spare time I get at home and when work is busy, there is no chance to do anything other than that. But by the same fact I actually get a little frustrated if I cannot find the time to post. I guess I have got used to, over the years, being able to vent my frustrations, share my funny stories, or simply just to type and empty the mind, and when that conduit is taken away from me, I think poor Ema get’s it in the ear as I discuss my thoughts with her instead. So, without further ado, in the interest of giving Ema a break from my ramblings, here are some updates.

I’ve been playing EQ2 pretty relentlessly when I get spare time. I’ve continued raiding and Volts equipment is not starting to look something like it should be. There’s some pretty large and important gaps though, such as my leg and head pieces. The leg pieces mob goes down at least once a week for us, and yet I still am waiting to be lucky enough to see them drop (always seem to be mage and scout legs when we kill Proto-Exarch Finnrdag) and when it has dropped I have never won the roll. As of yet the only head piece mob I have killed is in the x2 and I’ve only ever seen the fighter head piece drop once. Yes I lost that roll too. Aside from my unlucky rolls on those, I really have been doing quite well with drops. Fully fabled apart from my Legendary BP, with only two armour pieces to upgrade and a charm slot. So I’m pretty pleased.

I’ve been enjoying raiding too. It’s not just been about the gathering of equipment. It’s been really nice hammering away at tougher content again and working as part of a larger team. I’ve certainly been getting plenty of chances to do that too, as I seem to have been utilised as the Off-Tank quite a bit. I’ve been pretty pleased with how that’s gone. Of course, when you are in a raid with some nice dps, it’s not always easy grabbing aggro on adds when you need to, but I think it’s being going OK. On some mobs where there are just a silly amount of adds, that doesn’t always go to plan, but usually we have at least another brawler with us nowadays and they are nicely picking up the errant beggars who seem to get away from me. Our Monks dps was nice last night, especially seeing as they only returned to raiding with us a few weeks ago. For the first two zones, I was about 10k higher than they were on dps, whilst I was off-tanking too, but in the last zone, they switched our Monk to the caster group and his dps was really really sweet. Out dps’ing me by 35k at one point. It was nice to see. They have obviously found a real sweet spot there and it would be nice to see that continue to make our force all the better.

Although I have been enjoying the raiding, it has driven home a point to me though. This dawned on me a couple of weeks ago whilst raiding and we were sat around listening to strats and waiting for the pull. I realised that no matter how the strats change or the look of the raid zones or the graphics of the mobs we are fighting, essentially, it’s the same as when I first started to raid in anger back in Kingdom of Sky expansion. Now, as I am approaching 40 years old, I’m allowed to do some reassessments and have the occasional mid-life crisis, and it really did dawn on me that I have been doing this stuff for a long time now and I’ve really not moved forward. In real life my work is going well and I seem to be impressing my bosses and gaining notice from the industry in general, but sometimes progression in your work life isn’t enough. I’m not ready to quit raiding and EQ2 just yet, but I reckon it’s going to be on the horizon in the interest of moving forward and not stagnating.

In other EQ2 news, I have been playing a bit more with my Bro Merecraft recently, and although not up to our previous quota, as my niece and her sleep patterns settle (awww), we seem to get a bit more time to hunt together. The last few sessions we have had we have been hammering out some of his old HQs. We polished off ‘The Symbol in the Flesh’ in Loping Plains area and also have done the ‘A Thorn of Old’, the Wyrmslayer questline. That one was quite a bit of fun actually. For any who haven’t done this quest it ends with several Dragons that you have to kill. One is a heroic only, Sothis in The Halls of Fate, but the other two are epic x4s. Harla Dar in The Temple of Scale (although this didn’t stop us spending 20 mins looking for him in Sanctum of Scaleborn at my insistance!) and Lord Vyemm in the Labaratory of Lord Vyemm. We really had a lot of fun duo’ing those (with Volt mentored to 82), especially Labs. Most of the mobs were grey to us until we hit the second half of the zone, and then they were only green. None of the mobs gave us any trouble really. To the point of when we were killing Vyemm, we thought we had leashed his buddy the Slavering Alzid (or something like that), and only when Vyemm was dead did we realise the add had been stuck in the wall the whole time pummelling me. It made that little of a dent, we didn’t even notice him. So that kinda gives you an idea how easy it was. It was really weird though. I recall coming through with a whole raid force (this was the first raid zone I ever completed) and needing to hit around 15 – 20 k dps to be successful. It did seem a little strange to be going through mentored and sill duo’ing the mobs and with just two of us hitting more than treble the amount of dps our whole raid used to do. How times move on eh?

The other night Merecraft dinged 83 and it dawned on me that for him to be levelling above 80, it meant he would have access to the Sundered Frontier zones.(cannot for the life of me understand why it took me so long to realise). We previously thought he only had up to TSO expansion wise. I was pretty made up about this discovery, because for me SF is a great expansion with a really fun set of quests that lead through the 80’s nicely up to 90th level. It’s my fave expansion after Kunark, so to get the chance to be running through the quest lines again will be great. I have only ever taken two toons through this expansion, and that’s Voltaan and Adurj Le’Bard. Back then I had decided to ditch my many many alts (I had 6 at 80) in favour of concentrating on just one or two. So unlike Kunark which I have done a gazillion times, it will be nice to help out in SF and Stonebrunt.

I’m still undecided whether to buy the expansion ‘Age of Discovery’ when it comes out or not. I am starting to think about winding my game time down to nothing. SW:ToR is on the horizon and I know my Bro will be well engrossed in that, and if he likes it, he may never return to Norrath. My Bro being in-game was one major contributory factor for me sticking around. Then on top of that there is the déjà vu feeling I mentioned above when raiding, and I’m starting to wonder what I’m actually achieving here, or if I’m just stagnating. No decisions have to be made yet though. I’ve given myself an after Christmas review period, and I’ll see how I feel then. SW:ToR will have been out for a few weeks and I’ll be able to see what effect that has on my time in EQ2. In the mean time, it’s just more of the same old same old.

For other gaming fun I am still power sliding my way through Dirt2. I’ve now reached level 41 and scarily, 47 hours worth of play time. I’m sure that’s nothing compared to some, but that’s a quite a bit to be spending on a driving game, even though it is one of my fave genres. I really enjoy the differences in Dirt2. The fact that you can switch between races and then tournaments, depending on what style of racing is taking your fancy that day. The fact that you get to use some historic rallying cars is fantastic fun. I remember watching Tony Pond in 1985/6 drive the Group B Metro 6R4 round Trentham Gardens during the Lombard RAC rally (British leg of the World Rally Championship). Being able to race one, then watch the replays was so much fun. Likewise with the Ford Escort RS and the Ford RS200. I really like the definite difference between the types of car. Try a different car in the events of the same ilk and sometimes the difference is startling, but lot’s of fun. For example, try accelerating hard whilst in a turn in your Escort (rear wheel drive) and you’ll be seeing trees and bushes. Try it in one of the Suburus and your gliding round the turn with perfection. Totally different driving styles. I guess that’s why I like it. You truly have to adapt and use all your skills to win in the varying races/classes.

One thing that seems a bit of a pain is the fact you do seem to be re-visiting the same tracks over and over. Admittedly, there is quite a few of them spread all over the globe, but it doesn’t seem to take too long before you know your way around the varying tracks, forward and reverse. I’d like a bit more variation for the tracks, but to be honest I guess it’s just like any other ‘non-circuit’ racing. The WRC are well used to visiting the same stages every year. Some are changed of course, but the stages do remain fairly similar. So, it’s probably gaming meets real life there. I’m still really really enjoying the game though, and seem to have plenty left to do. Not sure how many hours worth, but there is still a nice chunk of greyed out Tournaments / Races / Challenges to get my teeth in to.

Finally, a quick mention for MotoGP. Casey Stoner won the MotoGP World Championship yesterday with two races in hand. He won it on his 26th birthday (man I wish I had been doing that at 26!) and at his home race. His performance all year has been legendary, rivalled only with the skill of Jorge Lorenzo really. I guess Pedrosa, Dovi also. But whatever the competition, Caseys year has simply been electrifying. His talent is amazing and to be honest he has the skill to join the top two of all time (including my hero Rossi) and maybe, if time is there for him, to surpass them. So, congratulations to Casey Stoner...and a quick comment. I know you get your nay sayers (and I’m not your biggest fan..a bit too serious for me) but stop trying to justify yourself. He made a comment after the race stating that previously he had received criticism for his 2007 World Championship win and that this one couldn’t be challenged as there were three other people on the same bike, so he won it fair and square. But I don’t see it as that at all. He had the best package. The most important part of the best package is the rider. You won this Championship and the last one in 2007 fair and square. Do not justify it, simply bask in it Casey. You are now one of only four other riders in the history of motorcycle racing to win a World Championship on two different manufacturers motorcycles. First Ducati in 2007, then Honda in 2011. It’s a very exclusive club, and you are now in it! Congratulations Mr Stoner, to you and your team for a well deserved Championship win. Now get MotoGP back as exciting as Moto2 or BSB and we’ll all be winners.

Finally, finally...condolences to the family and team of British born Dan Wheldon, Indy racer in the US, following a fatal race incident during the last race of the season at the Las Vegas 300. Dan took the win in May of the legendary Indy 500, for the second time. Great racer and if the reports from the paddock over the last few years are anything to go by, a true gent. R.I.P Mr Wheldon.

Be well.

I know! It's been a while..

2011-10-11T08:10:00.000-07:00

And it's likely to be a while longer. I have so much going on at the moment in real life, I simply do not have the brain space to think about what I am going to write and although this may come as a surprise to some, I do actually consider my scribings before they are posted. This does not mean I won't be back regularly blogging, it just means I have to get all this RL crap outta the way first.

I know it's not MMO based, but there is one thing close to my heart I wanted to touch upon quickly before I head off to do more work, and that is this weekends British Superbike Chamionship final three races this weekend at Brands Hatch circuit (awesome place! It's where I cheered Colin Edwards to his second World Superbike Championship win).

The racing this weekend was spectacular to say the least and after a whole seasons worth of racing across 26 races throughout the UK, the Championship was won by six thousandths of a second! The finish had to be confirmed by timer and a photo finish. There was literally a wheel in it. That's some damn close racing. Sadly the fella I was supporting, John 'Hopper' Hopkins for the Crescent Racing Suzuki Team was the one to lose out in this battle to Tommy Hill. Hill was just as deserving of the Championship as he rode amazingly this year especially when you consider the difficult injuries he has comeback from and not to mention he nearly quit racing back in 2003 (I think) when his funding ran out.

So, a heart felt set of commiserations for Hopper who did an absolutely stunning job riding at the front for most of the season, especially when he had never ridden at over half of the tracks, and congratulations to Tommy Hill. Both amazing riders and ideally, they both should have won. I know it's not possible, but come on...six thousandths of a second after a whole seasons racing!

The below video (click through to watch in a better size) is well worth a look. One of the best final laps I have ever seen in motorcycle racing. Hopper is on the blue & white Suzuki #21, and Hill is on the Yamaha R1 in Yellow #33. Amazing stuff. Hats off to these riders. Apologies to any F1 fans out there or even MotoGP fans (yes I am one), but this ferocious battle is what motor racing is all about, not a procession. The size of the cajones on these guys...phenomenal.

The photo finish! This race decided the whole championship..after 26 races, this is how close it was..

Be well.

Age of Discovery

2011-09-26T13:01:00.000-07:00

It’s about time I updated my raiding experience. If you read this blog you’ll know that I had been (originally) helping out a friend who needed a raid brawler for Destiny of Velious content. I’d hung up my raiding shoes but seeing as it was a specific request and seeing as I knew a lot of the folks, I of course agreed. Things have moved on a little from that currently. I guess it’s one of those things being part of a raid syndicate and not a full on raiding guild. Folks move on, the structure changes. Normally the ‘core’ stay the same, but change is a definite factor.

Currently, with the old (new) syndicate changing a lot of folks moved back to the old (old – yes I know it’s confusing) raid syndicate which is now where I’m at and raiding with a bunch I have known for quite some time. It didn’t take me long to get the raiding bug back and I’m a little disappointed in myself and my willpower that it was that easy. I had hoped that I would be able to ditch that particular addiction and move on, but after a few raids, I was hooked again. There is one thing that seems wrong though and that is that my wife Emarald is still absent and won’t be returning to game. It really doesn’t feel the same raiding without her sending me tells it’s my turn to make a cup of tea. We also miss her mega heals, although the raid itself is doing quite well, from what points of reference I have that is.

Voltaan is currently about half kitted now in DoV easy mode gear and I know I’ll never be getting the Hard Mode gear. I think this must be one of the only expansions with there being Hard Mode content that has still yet to be broken by any guild on any server. Of course that may not still be the case, but it certainly was a while ago when I last checked the rankings. So, I’m not too bothered about the HM stuff. Sure it would be a challenge if I ever get kitted enough, but being honest, by then, I’m not sure if I’ll still be playing EQ2 or not. I have in my opinion, valid reasons for my apprehension to my future with EQ2.

Over at EQ2Wire, they have posted here a summary of all the official chat concerning the upcoming expansion, Age of Discovery. Which, to be honest, after reading the write up seems like a bit of an ironic title. So to start with, the Age of Discovery, will include, wait for it... no discovery. There will be no new overland or dungeons for this expansion. Taken from EQ2Wire and the official SoE release, here’s what to expect. Before we delve in to it, one must consider SoEs track record for testing content (GU61 anyone?)

Beastlords — The most frequently requested feature of EQ1 arrives with the Beastlord class. The 25th class will wear Brawler equipment but otherwise have an archetype of Scout. Will have a separate AA tree for their pet
Mercenaries — NPCs which can be hired to assist in questing, groups, and raids
Tradeskill Apprentices — Little is known about these, but they use a new crafting table type and offer unique new recipes.
Design Your Own Dungeon — Based on an updated version of the housing system, players can build dungeons using existing Zone styles, placing Items and Mobs picked up from around Norrath. They can then publish their Dungeon for others to play *using avatar NPCs* (you may not use your own character to run a DYOD). Rewards include gear for your main character, or items which can be used to build your own Design Your Own Dungeons.
Item Reforging — Reshuffle some (but not all) of the stats on your items. You’ll also gain an in-game Particle Effect editor.
Increase to 350 AAs

I’m not that bothered about Beastlords. I have already come to terms with the fact I no longer have time for alts, let alone levelling one to 90 again. Voltaan will remain my main until I finish playing the game. I simply cannot afford to commit to another character.

The Mercs sound like fun, if they get the mechanics right. It worked well in EQ as far as I am aware. Let’s hope the same gremlins work on the EQ2 version. This could mean that a lot of those folks who like to solo will now have their options widened. It will mean the same for duo-ing partners and for smaller raid forces. It remains to be seen how useful or how effective they will be. If they turn out to be too powerful we could have issues and in addition, if they are too weak they will be of no use. I’m sure they will find a happy medium, at some point. My lack of faith is showing methinks.

Tradeskill apprentices is a cool idea. Pity SoE didn’t think of it first. Let’s hope they can make it work for those who like to be all EVE about their tradeskilling and if they’ll work for you whilst offline as well as out adventuring. I'm sure the answer to this one is out there somewhere, but I've not researched it yet.

DYOD should be a lot of fun. The only hope I have for this is that we will be allowed to take our own toons through content created by other players. It says above it may be a system where you enter with a pre-determined avatar (not your toon), even though your toon will reap the rewards. Not so sure I like that idea. I play my toon for a reason and for those old table toppers like myself, the back story of a character is very important and when I play my toon, I’m not just playing some pixels, I’m putting on a pair of old comfy shoes. I hope with the DYOD feature I’m not forced away from that.

Item Reforging sounds interesting. It could mean unique weapons/equipment for our toons and they are implementing a way we can alter the particle effects, making it truly unique in looks and effect. Or as my cynical side would wish me to state, this is a way of getting players to rectify the mess up with the re-itemisation and to stop all the complaining.

Increasing the AAs to 350 will be interesting. Why? Well because they have not given any clue if we will be getting a new AA tree. If not, that means an extra 50 AA to spread around what we already have. I’m sure some would benefit from it, and Volt would a little but to be honest, about 40 of those points would be wasted as he already has pretty much most of what I like to be a jack of all trades (tanky/dps). We’ll have to see how they deal with this.

So, knowing all this and knowing there will be no new overland or instance/dungeon content (aside from what players will design and implement under DYOD), I have to ask, is it actually an expansion par-se? Am I willing to pay for it? The amount of content seems a lot less than some of the old Adventure Packs that were released way back when. I’m just not sure. I guess the pricing will have a lot to do with it for me.

I know SoE won’t be worried. There are enough out there who have been waiting an eternity for the Beastlord and for the serious endgamers, the extra AAs will not be missed. SoE will make their money, just you see. But for me ( I know a lot are happy with the ‘expansion’ content), I have to ask, what are they actually getting the for their expansion money? I’m not so sure that the spent Euros will equate to value for money, and nowadays most of us don’t have an extra cent to spend. I’m still on the fence. This may just be a blip in the road for me, but if they charge a fortune for the expansion, it may be the end. There’s 2 months to go. We’ll see what happens.

Be well

When the music's over, turn off the lights

2011-09-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

My wife is currently looking for other games to play. She recently quit EQ2 (for about the third or fourth time) and has already reached saturation point from TV. Until The Vampire Diaries comes back on our screens, she’ll need something else to get her teeth in to before she throws the TV out the window.

She gave RIFT a go when it came out, as did I, but for some reason it didn’t gel with us. I’m not sure why, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with the game. I think it’s kind of a MMO fatigue that gets in to your bones after you have been playing them for a while. By ‘a while’, I mean for about the last ten years on and off for Ema and I. Any who have had this feeling when playing an MMO will know what I’m talking about. The way that we log in, then just sit around, chat a little and before you know it an hour has passed by and you have nothing to show for it. When things get like this, in my experience the game pretty much becomes social networking site with folks logging on just to see their friends and guildies. Not a problem of course, but the focus is definitely different and you end up paying a premium every month just to be able to hang with your friends.

The lethargy that you get after a while just sits there. It’s usually not big enough to stop you playing the game, but when you log in it’s certainly enough to stop you from getting started on anything substantial. Even when we switched to RIFT for a short while, we couldn’t become enthused. Like I said, it’s not because of the game. I think it’s because we have become fed up of starting at the beginning time after time. We both played a lot of alts over our time in MMOs and have ‘started’ time and time again. RIFT was different, but not different enough to stimulate us or to grip us in a way that an MMO hasn’t before.

I’m not quite at the stage Ema is as she always plays the game to death. I don’t mean time wise, as Emas log in times were conservative compared to others, but when she did log in, only a minute would pass before she was in a group doing tough content or raiding. My play style is a little more relaxed and as a result I feel I don’t burn out as quickly as she does. But it does happen for me. I have quit EQ2 twice before, not found anything to replace it and come back. Ema is very keen to see this doesn’t happen again with her. She’s trying to fill the time with alternative gaming options and real life stuff instead (there’s a surprising amount of RL stuff out there apparently!) and as such hopes that she won’t feel the need to log in to EQ2 again. The only thing that would bring her back I think is absolute boredom and her friends, but even that isn’t too much of a draw back in to the game as she has contact with most on Facebook.

I have to consider that it wasn’t just the fatigue that pushed Ema to quit. At the time there was a period of unrest in her normal circles and she got fed up of being mentioned in drama, when she didn’t cause it or really have anything to do with it, but she get’s dragged in because she was popular and someone folks confided in her, taking her listening as a green light to mention her name in their point of view. Anyhow, it was a joint reason between the fatigue and the fact she was simply fed up of seeing her name dragged in to stuff that was closely related to drama, and she was fed up with how some who she thought were old ‘friends’ and how they treated her and most of all was fed up of watching her friends and folks she cares about fall out and not get along. All of this compounded her fatigue with the game and gave her the ‘it’s not really worth it’ vibe.

Ema does have RL stuff she can be getting on with but what can fill her gaming vacuum assuming she still has time? Anything in depth with a long complicated storyline is not going to cut it. Gaming time has been cut down already and for some instant gratification, I suggested our PS3. I recall back in the day when I had just had my new Playstation2 delivered and several of my friends including my now wife used to spend evening upon evening trying to beat each other down in many a competition of Mashed, Mini Micro Machines, or SSX Tricky. I recon we can have just as much fun with that type of competitive gaming nowadays. I know we haven’t indulged in that sort of gaming for a long long time but it doesn’t always have to be sat at a PC playing a game that really has no end and has been our gaming staple for the last decade or so. Whatever she decides I know she’ll find something to fill her time, and that’s the thing. MMOs take up SO much of your time, there really is a huge gap to fill if you quit. Not just that particular MMO, but any of them. I’ve mentioned previously my /played hours on EQ2 caused me to cancel three of my accounts in horror at the amount of time I have spent playing in total and you can’t just rip that many hours out of your calendar and expect that you are still going to be busy. That’s a lot of downtime to fill.

I must admit though, I’ve just thought of something that’s got me a little worried. When my wife has time on her hands, she comes up with ‘ideas’. Those ideas usually involve some sort of physical task or chore requiring my input. Oh my, I should have thought of this knock on effect previously. I need to finish this post quickly and convince Ema that MMOs are the way to go, and that the Devil creates work for idle hands, (or work for my busy hands, allocated by the idle).

Be well.

Alts, I've had a few.

2011-09-09T01:58:00.000-07:00

Alts. I have a lot. I used to own four Everquest 2 accounts (I now only run one). At its hay day my EQ2 involvement had me running five top tier toons over the four accounts with about six or seven lower tiered toons that I would work on when I had time. I’ve now only got one top tier toon and although my alt list is full on the account, I don’t play any of the other toons on a regular basis. I’ve been thinking about this and what had caused the change in how I approached the game.

A huge amount of folks play alts. It even has its own name when one becomes obsessed with running lots of toons, Altitus. There are folks who have teams of tradeskill alts, some who have an army of alts they can pick from when two, three, four or more boxing. Folks have raid alts that they swap in and out depending on which zone/encounter they are running. Alts are part of the game for most people.

My alts were all to do with experiencing the game though different styles of play and because I used to be a roleplayer, there is no shortness of back story and each of my alt toons was created because at that time I had an ‘interest’ in creating a toon of that type. For example, I recall creating Langdale my Ratonga Ranger who I played for a short while, all because when I created him I was in a buoyant mood and feeling a little childish and mischievous. For his short existence I wrote a blog about his adventures. From what I recall he was created following a few drinks at a family BBQ. Voltaan was created out of a roleplay point of view. I was fed up of playing toons with fancy glowing blades and huge amounts of magic going off, so I thought it would be nice to play a toon that in a world of magic and power, just liked to punch things in the face.

I guess everyone creates alts for their own reasons. As I say, I have created them from a RP point of view, and emotional point of view, and of course, as I am sure many have, from a boredom point of view. The one thing that does seem to be fairly consistent is the fact that once bitten, the player is doomed to have a load of alts that they switch in and out depending on mood and play style, pretty much for their entire gaming career in their game of choice. So, why did I quit alts? Why hit the Alt cold turkey?

The first reason is financial. I’m lucky enough to have a good job that pays well. But no matter how much you earn, you always pretty much spend up to your ability to spend. Add in a family and of course at some point you’re going to need to save a few pennies. One of the first things to go for me when the belt has been tightened, are surplus gaming accounts. They are one of the things I find hard to justify. It’s not as if I can say that because of quitting a few accounts that I won’t be able to log in. No, I’ll still be able to enjoy the game; just with less options is all. So getting rid of the extra accounts is not too difficult a thing when you need to watch the funds.

The second reason I quit alts is because of a little bit of shame and shock. One day whilst ‘alt hopping’ and switching some in game cash around, for some reason whilst playing Voltaan I did a /played. To my horror, I was greeted by the message that I had spent over 200 days playing that one toon. As I hopped from alt to alt, I checked their /played time and to be honest, it scared me. Another 90 days on my Dirge, 45 days on my Necro, 60 ish on my Assassin, 25 on my Zerker and many more! I started to add up the numbers, then stopped. The figure did scare me. I looked at my daughters and wondered how I had spent so much time playing, where I had found the time? I try hard to be a good father, but those figures spoke for themselves. At some point time spent on alts could and perhaps should have been spent with my family. This was the catalyst for me. I decided there and then to never run alts again and to cut my play time down.

I did drag out a few of the older toons when Merecraft needed a level specific toon to tank for him in the lower tiers and I didn’t fancy playing Volt (to just mush everything in sight), we actually fancied a challenge. So out came an alt. But the alt went back into its box right after. It wasn’t an ongoing thing. So, now I am alt free. Yes my account has every slot filled, but the only one I play is Voltaan and I’m happy with that. I’m happy that whilst playing with Volt that I will always enjoy the toon. It took quite a few creations and many years of playing to find out that Bruiser was the class that agreed with me and my playstyle the most. Now I’ve found that out I feel I don’t miss alts that much, and I’m certainly content with my choice to spend less time playing the game on toons that aren’t my number one and the extra time that has given me with my family.

Alts are great. They provide an answer to many problems and situations, are fun to play, expand your experience and understanding of the game, allow you to still play with folks when your other classes are not required in a group. They allow you to conquer content you could not normally solo by virtue of ‘boxing’, they can offer a set of multiple personalities to match your mood should you be a roleplayer, they even provide alternative uses for all those nice items you get that the toon you are playing cannot utilise. They serve many a purpose to various folks. But for me, they’ve had to go. Cheerio my faithful army of minions, you can all climb back in your boxes. No. Not you Volt. You can stay right where you are.

Be well.

The Reluctant Raider

2011-09-07T02:58:00.000-07:00

Volt went raiding again the other night, DoV content. It really does show you how much work I have to do when I don’t even recall the names of the raid instances we went to (yes I could check, but that would make it look like I knew what I was talking about). One of them was Kraytoks I think and the other Throne of Storms? I CoV’d in to the first one as I was late turning up (thanks Gibraltar border queue!!) and the other I got auto zoned in from Eastern Wastes. The nights raiding went quite well I thought, although obviously I have absolutely no point of reference. Volt came out with two armour pieces, a War Rune and a belt, all nicely equipped and adorned. I was a little frustrated that I couldn’t get any DoV red adorns even though I have enough faction. It’s all down to not having enough of the raid shards just yet. In the mean time he has filled the red slots with the war rune I won and red slot adornments from Sentinel’s Fate. It’s a good job I have a lot of Seals of Arad left.

I’m a little surprised myself that I have got back in to raiding. I swore I wouldn’t do it. I don’t really have the time and had got myself in to such a relaxed zone that the impetus wasn’t there. I just wanted to hang out with my Bro and guildies and have a bit of fun, questing and doing instances. So why did I? Well, if you read my post here, you’ll know that my old syndicate went through a bit of a tough time recently and as such a ‘splinter’ syndicate was started and they needed a brawler. So I offered to help until they get a better one (I’m kinda surprised that hasn’t happened already). That’s how I got back in to it. I’m not sure how long this will go on, or how long I will be needed to help out, but at the moment it’s quite good fun truth be told. I have considered that the more kit I get, the less likely they will want to let me go. It’s never fun for a raid force to get someone all equipped and then watch them stroll off in to the sunset. I want to avoid that if at all possible, so it may be that I stay, or that I find them a kick ass Brawler soon.

One thing I will say about playing Voltaan in anger again in raids, is that it took me a little time to get up to speed with how fast things move in that environment and then on the opposite side of the spectrum, how long it takes sometimes to get to the killing (I’m not a psycho, I assure you). With being one of only three tanks, I was called to offtank most of the fights and it went OK. I was a little bemused that as the least kitted of the tanks I was called to OT, but Volt never shies away from a challenge (obstinate old fool) and his kit wasn’t too bad (143 crit mit). It went really well. A couple of times we wiped on first pull because I was learning the script, but mostly everything went down as it should.

One thing I should mention is the amount of adds that appear in some of the named fights. They seem to come in waves and with a higher frequency the longer the fight goes on. Now with not much hate transfer, two really hot Ranger dps’ers and a whole bunch of adds, it was a little like when you take the balls on a billiard table then bounce them all off the cushions at once then stand back and watch the chaos. Poor old Volt was running around like a headless chicken trying to gather the mobs up. Consequently he wasn’t doing enough damage to keep them aggroed as most of his damage comes from auto attack especially with group mobs and range was an issue, my AoEs weren’t catching all the mobs. Maybe next time I’ll be able to keep it a little tighter. It was a huge amount of fun, but also a little frustrating. The old raiding Volt would have had no trouble with that. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m just getting up to speed again.

In other EQ2 news, a quick mention about the recent re-itemisation. Last night my Bro and I were mashing our way through The Crypt of Agony and three times we came across anomalies concerning loot. Firstly, two of the named didn’t drop chests. Nothing at all, not even a small or treasured chest. That may be old school, but I have never encountered that in CoA before. Like I say, maybe that was always there and I’ve just never experienced it. Secondly, a neck piece dropped that was the exact same as another that Merecraft had looted from a completely different location. Not a big deal, just a bit strange. Lastly, a legendary item dropped for Mere and at level 65 it was far superior than the one he had equipped and that was a level 75 item. Anyhow, the main reason to report this is that the re-itemisation is obviously working out very well indeed. Well done.

Whilst I am on the subject, duo’ing CoA was a lot of fun. It’s one of my fave RoK instances and we enjoyed bashing our way through. But, (yes there’s always a but) the easy way with which we sliced through, like a hot knife through butter was a little, well, meh. Volt obviously can solo the zone nowadays, but even mentored down there was absolutely no challenge, and I miss that. It’s one of the reasons I couldn’t get my head around re-itemisation, levels 20-80. The content is so easy, there really is no need to make toons more powerful by implementing re-itemisation that seems to have beefed up items in my experience, not reduced them where appropriate. I don’t know, maybe I’m being an old fuddy-duddy but I’d kind of like the chance that something is going to destroy me and I have to use my skill both as a toon and player to get through. Maybe next time I’ll auto mentor to 5 or 10 levels below the content and see what happens. It’s a shame I haven’t got any level specific toons just to see how that pans out. Although from watching Mere and how he has no issue getting ^^^ mobs down, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Perhaps it is a good job I am doing x4 content again. I’m sure I’ll become accustomed to dirt naps again whilst raiding all too soon.

Be well.

"10-42"

2011-09-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

A bit of a departure from the norm today. A few of you will know that I used to be a Police Officer in the UK. I left because I became disillusioned with how modern day policing was developing and being influenced by politics (it’s all about the statistics and not actually helping folks!). I remember pretty much of every minute of my 16 years of service. It was an amazing job with equal amount of job satisfaction, elation and sadness all rolled in to one. One of the very best things about the Police was the camaraderie of the officers. I spent 7 years on a specialist unit as a Police Marksman, where the camaraderie was the strongest, but only just against the normal everyday policing years.

That is the reason I am writing today. I have not long heard of the sad death of one of my old colleagues (through illness, nothing suspicious). He was a person with an amazing character. Whoever he worked with had a treat in store for them that duty. There really was no one else like Clint. He was a one off. In a kind of eulogy for him, I’m going to run through some of my experiences working alongside the fella. By the end of the post, you’ll see why he was so well loved and respected by his colleagues.

Clinton was an honest man, to say the least. In the six years I worked alongside him I only ever knew him to attend one social event with work colleagues. When asked if he would be attending a meet for drinks or any social event really, you would get the good natured reply of “Pikey (my nick), I see enough of you idiots all day long here at work. If you think I’m going to spend any of my hard earned personal time associating with you bunch of losers, you’re sadly mistaken”. Like I said, honest. And everyone loved him for that. With Clint you knew where you were and his comments were not made with nastiness, but in good humour with a wry grin. But he wasn’t joking completely. Like I said he only ever attended one event, and that was a wedding of his patrol partner. Ironically enough, his funeral was absolutely packed.

The first time I met Clinton was in my first days as a fresh faced bobby. At the start of a duty, you all gather around the ‘parade table’ and get given your duties for the day from the Duty Sergeant, in addition to any useful intelligence or current wanted persons. Back in the day, smoking was allowed in buildings in the UK and more often than not the parade room was awash with cigarette smoke during these meetings. Now being an extremely heavy smoker at the time, Clint had been banished to the local control room during this particular parade as the Sergeant was an anti-smoker. So, it fell to Clint to answer the phone, watch the CCTV cameras and man the local radio channel.

The Serg was busy briefing us on the latest in a spate of ram-raids we were getting on higher value clothing stores in the area, when the official Police radio lights up with Clints dulcet tones in somewhat of a panic. “They’re doing it! It’s happening! I’ve just seen ‘em reverse through the fuckin’ window!”. Of course once calmed down we managed to find out that ram-raiders had smashed the front of a Benetton store and were making their way off with lots of brightly coloured clothes in a sports car. It was just how he was. Clint would not have been out of place in the BBC cop show, the Thin Blue Line.

Another time I was crewed with Clint, and we had been seconded to a rather rural area to help monitor a rave party that was going on at a farmhouse in its grounds. In itself, not an issue, but intel had been passed of certain drug activity going on at the site and descriptions told us it was more than likely one of the more influential local dealers making an unexpected appearance (his lackies usually did the ground work). So, we were parked up in a lay-by, off this single file country road simply watching the traffic coming and going, making note of any suspicious activity. It was a warm night and Clint has his car window open and his arm hanging out whilst we were stationary. We’d only been there ten minutes when a van trying to get access through the gate, reversed in to our Police vehicle, and on to Clints arm, trapping it against the door (he was uninjured). As the van drove off, he jumped out of the Police car and started to chase it on foot, mud splashing from his feet as he pounded after the van. With me leaning out of the window I shouted him back, reminding him we would need the car for a pursuit.

What occurred next was perhaps one of the scariest and at the same time funniest things I have gone through. The van sped off in to the grounds of the farm, and because Clint had to run back to the car before we could pursue (I still wasn’t authorised to drive cop cars back then) we were a little behind. Now Clint was a great driver, very skilled (aside from when he was reversing..you’ll see what I mean later). He needed all his skill as the little car was pushed to its limits trying to catch the van down muddy dirt tracks. The whole time Clint was deathly silent and I thought he may have lost it. As we sped through the final gateway to the field where the rave was and where the van had come to a halt, two ticket guys on the gate both had to leap in to the hedge to avoid the speeding cop car as it slewed through the gate at about 60 mph. We came up to the van and the driver (somewhat bemused – he obviously hadn’t seen us in the dark lane and thought he had hit a gate post or something) was confronted by Clint who whilst waving his arms around at the guy looked like he was raving himself (the music was blaring in the background). The only snippet of the conversation I caught was the driver apologising profusely, only to be rebuffed by Clintons shrill voice, whilst waving his arms around energetically (it really did look like he was raving) “SORRY? SORRY? LOOK AT ME FUCKIN’ CAR DOOR!”.

During one period of time, Clint had sustained an injury whilst on duty and was confined to the reception of the Police Station to answer public enquiries. Bad move by the bosses there. He’s not the most subtle of folks. Whilst in that capacity, I heard him speak to a member of the public reporting a possible gas leak, “Madam, please look at the badge on my shirt. It’s says Police, not British Gas. Goodbye”. Another time a distraught woman had come in to report her ex-boyfriend circulating to her friends and family, naked and explicit photos that he had taken when they were together. The lady handed Clint an envelope with some examples of the photos and was clearly embarrassed by the whole thing, but understood she was making the correct move to report it. Or so she thought. She hadn’t counted on Clinton. I’ll never forget her official complaint against him after he took a look at a photo of her lower regions whilst wearing panties, only to explain at her hirsute state, “You can see the fuckin’ spiders legs stickin’ out the side!”.

Another time I was with Clint was in a vehicle pursuit around a local town centre. After about 15 minutes of the chase Clint exclaimed rather proudly “He’s gone the wrong way down Frog Lane, I’ll cut him off at the entrance” (there was only one way in and out). He then enthusiastically reversed the car back the way we had come to cut off the felon. However, Clint although a very good driver could not reverse a car properly unless he had the drivers door slightly ajar, which is what he did this time, only to get it slightly wrong and completely ripped off the Police car door on a stationary Jaguar. I couldn’t believe it, especially when I got out to survey the damage and saw the small flags on the bonnet (hood, for my US buds). I must say, I did get a bit of perverse pleasure from radioing in “Control, Quebec Alpha 43. Police RTA, Frog Lane. It appears we have ripped off the drivers door whilst reversing.... into the Mayors Jaguar. 43 out”.

There are many many more stories concerning my old buddy Clinton. Too many to mention, but I shall always remember them very fondly indeed.

Clint, you were one in a million. Here’s to all the good times *raises glass*.

QuebecAlpha-43, out.

GU#61..more info

2011-08-31T08:18:00.000-07:00

Just a quick one, if you read this blog and not EQ2 Wire, you need to head over there or to the official forums (I’m not linking a post there. There are just too many on this subject). Because I hadn’t had so many problems with re-itemisation and things seem to have worked out OK for me and the few I talk to about such things following the GameUpdate #61, I really didn’t understand the gravity of the mess this had caused.

It seems our worries were well founded prior to the update. Disgraceful. Really.

Be well.

Unrest (not the zone!)

2011-08-31T04:15:00.000-07:00

Been a little while since I’ve posted, I have my mother staying for the week and a few days off work seemed in order. Whilst I’ve been off I’ve started to explore DoV content a bit more and it’s not bad, but to be honest, I’m not getting the same interested buzz that I usually do when exploring new content. The quest lines are OK, I’m now running the Eastern Wastes solo timeline and am also looking at picking up the new faction quests that were added in the latest GU61. I’ve also been on my first DoV raid. It was only the x2 in ToFS, but it was quite a bit of fun and I don’t think Volt embarrassed himself too much.

I mentioned GU61 above and that deserves a mention. As usual SoE had some issues with the update, especially the unattuning and unadorning of items following the itemisation revamp. In fact they got it wrong and had to do it twice, which annoyed a lot of folks, especially those who have many alts. Not only did they have to spend an age sorting out their AA and equipment on all their toons, they had to do it again the day after. There was quite a few pee’d off folks, as the second time it was not very well publicised that they were going to do a re-run. As such quite a few didn’t un-equip their stuff and all the adornments popped off.

Luckily I did know about it and didn’t fall foul of the second load of unequips. There was obviously some who were still having problems with this as they had to offer a free option unattune yesterday. I do know that following the ‘failure’ there were a lot of upset folks. A few in my guild had already planned what kit they were sending down to their alts only to find that when they logged in, everything was lovely and unattuned, yet when they switched, everything had attuned itself again. I know some of them are still having trouble with this and are pretty upset about it. As for Volts stuff, all of his equipment he is wearing is fine. His Rune Scraped Turban is now adorned with my red adornment following a quick fix, and to be honest, since the original drama, things seem to have settled down a fair bit.

The other thing in game I have been interesting myself with is the new house rating system. I must say, some of the houses are impressive to the extreme. One thing I will say though, it’s quite apparent who has used the editor and who has not. I use the editor when designing to simply alter the angle of an item. The actual placing is always done free-hand so to speak. But some of them, wow. One had a roof design so complex and perfectly executed that it couldn’t have been done by hand. They looked very impressive, but I really do like the personal touch. To me, it’s like having one of those prefabricated houses put up in like 30 minutes. They look good, but have no soul. I’m yet to finish looking around. I may put Casa Volt up at some point into the limelight, although I do the designing for personal pleasure, not for the plaudits.

So, on to other ‘news’. There has been some rather unfortunate drama in an old raiding syndicate I used to be affiliated to and it’s had some knock on effects. Some folks have got pissy, some indignant, some just don’t seem to care. But without naming names, I’m going to try and summarise. Oh, before I do, I know some may say, let’s not ‘air’ our dirty laundry in public, but I’m not naming names and this blog has a long history of evaluating the reasoning and psychological interaction of those in game. I look at how folks act both in and out of game quite frequently here. So, on to it. The old raid leader left. Made it quite clear in a post that they were going. They had been the driving force behind this particular raid force for a long time and had done a good job under stressful circumstances. For those who have never been raid leader, it’s not so easy. No one had an issue with this. Of course it would be suitable to wish that person the best, thank them for all their hard work. But, just because one is leaving, does not mean the rest of the raid force has no future.

For me to address this next bit, I need to address raiding itself. I see that there are three different types of raid force. Those that dabble and just have the ‘fun’ factor. Those that wish to progress, but the raid force is not focussed enough so you get a mixture of “I’m happy being casual” against the “Let’s get harder content done, which means commitment and time..and talented players”. Finally of course you get the raid force that all wishes to be hardcore, meaning they wish to raid without compromise and that means skilful, dedicated players to the ‘nth degree.

So, I would categorise this particular raid force as a casual one with some serious raiders involved. Now when this current situation occurred, it is only natural as the raid leader left that some would see this as an opportunity to get what they wish from the raid force. A time for change so to speak. So a few folks decided to move forward and start a new Euro timezone raid force. Yes utilising ‘some’ of the players form the old force, but essentially removing those who it was felt fell more on the casual or untalented side, in favour of developing a raid force leaning more towards hardcore than casual. By this I don’t mean ‘full hardcore’, just some of the facets of this. Very talented players, no dead wood or carrying those who don’t perform as the main or can’t because of various valid reasons spend the time developing their toons sufficiently. I know this is an area some wish to address and there are some who are not pleased that there is a member of the force running around without their mythical clicky yet completed. I can kind of see this reasoning. It wouldn’t have been acceptable in SF, let alone DoV raidning.

This has effectively split the raid force. Understandably, when this news broke some wasted no time in moving forward with their new agenda, and in my opinion there is no issue with that. Time is of the essence if you are trying to get something you wish to come to fruition. If you leave it folks will become involved with other stuff and become committed to that. So, a few went and started a new website and effectively started to build their new raid force from some of those in the existing one. A short time passes then posts start to appear on the old raid webby stating the raid force is not dead and a raid appeared on the calendar. The latest stance with the old raid is “nothing’s changed and we’re carrying on”. This has left a bit of a problem. Because some used this situation and initial apparent folding of the original force as their golden opportunity to get away from some folks who although really nice folks, have an issue playing their toons well. It was an escape heading to further progression, not stagnation as it was seen that to carry on with the old setup would lead to this and not to moving forward.

The plot thickens. The latest summary of where the situation is at from an influential member states pretty much as I have said, that nothing has changed apart from who the raid leader is and possibly the raid days. Now this is where it gets complicated. The reason for this is that the post suggests everyone get on the new webby and raids are posted through there until it is known what is going on. But I pretty sure that there are some that the new holders of the new webby would not wish to move across because they are using this opportunity to progress how they wish with the game and of course there is no problem with that. But it will cause problems. We have older members of the original force who perhaps don’t understand the thinking behind the new venture and the fact is that it is designed to change how those folk raid and how the raid force is built. Effectively it will end up with some quitting raiding altogether with either force as they will have divided loyalties and will not wish to upset either party. Some will hedge their bets and sit on the fence, others will fall back in to the raid force that more suits them.

This of course assumes that the new and old raid forces will continue. It may be that one of those dies. My personal opinon? I think that those involved need to decide what is going on. For themselves. What do they want? Do they continue with building a new raid force, or do they just meld back with the old force and the issues it had? (discontented members because of different goals and approach to what the raid should be). I know in particular because of personality clashes that there are those involved that will never wish to be in the same zone let alone the same raid. So some seem to think all will move ahead all hunky-dorey as was with a different leader, and there are those who will be very frustrated with that and the ‘no changes’ approach, indeed some have already begun to make changes as I have mentioned.

It’s all a mess. I really don’t know what will happen or be the result of the situation, but I do know that it’s a shame. There are a lot of great folks in that syndicate and they all seem to be falling foul of the current unrest and divides seem to be getting bigger and more prominent. So, I’ve kind of given you a glimpse in to the current situation. But why? Don’t I risk upsetting people who are involved? Well, of course, but emotion is a fickle thing anyhow and with the written word there is always the risk of upsetting folks, as they may not read the words with the intent with which they were written (one of the problems in the first place! A badly worded post led to the rest of the force thinking ‘well that’s it. It’s over in this guise’). No, I hope I don’t upset anyone but I will never refrain in this blog from assessing the thought processes behind decisions, or how the human condition reacts with each other in such an environment. It’s one of the most interesting aspects of the game to me. How those who play interact with each other, and evaluating that against how they would normally act should they be standing face to face. If you read my blog you know I do this. So, I hope don’t upset anyone, but if I do, I do. Apologies for that, I cannot control their emotions. All those involved know I had immensely enjoyed my time raiding with this syndicate and even if I don’t understand how all deal with a situation, I still very much like and respect a lot of those involved.

My opinions and thoughts in a nutshell.

The original post should have been more explicit. By not being so, it invited those who were left to make their own assumptions on how things were to move forward. No one should be surprised or offended that someone actually acted on that post and did make a move and tried to move things forward how they wish it to be. It’s worth noting that the written word often gets misunderstood. Explicit indication of what is meant and reiteration is the only way to go if you wish to guarantee 100% understanding. Miscommunication is the conduit to misunderstandings.

Those who decided to create the new force should have started from fresh. Using some of the old folks now has led to an ‘either / or’ decision for those raiders involved now that it has become apparent that the ‘old’ force is not dead and some wish it to continue. Not a bad thing, but there is going to be upset and accusations of poaching. A secondary reasoning for this is that by starting from fresh, they would have been able to build the exact raid force of their choice to their specifications without historical hang ups or expectations.

Now that some have ‘seen the light’ they will not return or will not tolerate raiding with some they feel do not pull their weight or have no idea how to properly play their toons. They have had a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel, and I’m not so sure they will go back in to the dark. Don’t be so surprised by this, we all know players have opinions on how skilfully other players command their toons. EQ2 is a place not short of opinion.

Consistency. Without this raids cannot function properly and discontent starts to brew. For example, it is not OK to use abusive language, then tell someone to watch what comes out of their mouth, especially when it is known that during raids a different person has more than once used derogatory terms and attitude to others and appear to have not been pulled up about it. This fuels unrest as those involved can see double standards, even if they were not meant to be there and were the last thing the people involved wished to see. This is how it seems to those involved on one side of the fence and fuels the kind of reaction that happened when the raid leader said they were moving on. The raid splits the second it is given the chance to do so.

It is a game. A game where you get to interact with others albeit behind a screen, which sadly can lead to all of these kind of misunderstandings and sadly, conflict. It seems such a shame that drama like this can rise up out of a game and real folks end up getting hurt.

I really do hope they get their issues resolved. There is a lot of lovely folks in this circumstance and it’s a shame that such issues can come between people.

Finally, it is very much worth noting that someone I am very close to, someone who knows a lot of these folks is involved. Not one bit of the information here has come from this person and they are the first to energetically defend their friends, even when I ask questions trying to be an objective reporter, so to speak. None of the opinions here are theirs. They are mine. From an outsider looking in from the point of view of interest in how the human condition interacts with itself, through a very narrow social window. In fact I know this person disagrees with me about some of my evaluations. They’ll probably not be happy that I have posted this and voiced my opinion, but for someone who loves studying things like this and the many intricacies behind it, such an opportunity to evaluate cannot be missed. Oh, and I didn’t mention any names.

Be well.

GU61 - Success or Failure?

2011-08-26T01:49:00.000-07:00

GU 61 is in place. Yup, you guessed it, there’s been some hiccups. Firstly, the unadorning / unattuning didn’t quite go to plan. There’s been many reports and this includes myself, where items were unattuned and then after switching between toons, or logging in then out, the items became attuned again. This didn’t affect me too much as all of my kit that became free again were placed in to my shared bank straight away and those items remained unnattuned.

I had an additional problem. One of my pieces of equipment (my SF tier 2 raid helm – Rune Scraped Turban) had its red adornment pop off, then it wouldn’t let me reapply it. I even went and bought a new one just in case, but alas that didn’t work either. So I petitioned that problem. I didn’t hear of anyone else having any re-adorn issues.

There have also been reports of AAs resetting again after folks had painstakingly gone through the new trees and reset to their new spec. That hasn’t happened to me, but I ended up spending about an hour looking at the AA revamp and to be honest I wouldn’t relish doing it again. Stupidly, I didn’t save my new setup in my AA mirror.

So why’s that? Why would not saving be stupid? Well, because of all the issues, parts of GU61 will be run again today to try and hotfix the issues. The update time will be the same as yesterday which won’t be too bad. What will be a pain is that all of your equipment will become unattuned again with adorns popping off if you are wearing the armour. I haven’t read that they are going to reset AAs again, but I wouldn’t bet against it happening. So, if you are reading this in time before 3pm GMT today, then you still have a chance to go and unequip everything again and save your AA trees. If not you may have some more work to do to get things set up again when you log in later.

Overall, aside from the issues, I’m very pleased with how the re-itemisation went, and especially pleased that they included SF gear in the project. I have basically replaced the three remaining PQ rare armour pieces I have with old SF raid gear. After the revamp the stats are extremely good and probably place tier 2 SF raid gear somewhere between Ry’Gorr stuff and fabled instance drop stuff. I’m extremely happy I’m a hoarder in EQ2. My bank slots all have 44 slot bags in them and there are only a few free places as I always keep the previous few sets of armour / equipment I wore. Being able to go back and review their stats was very useful and I used a few pieces of armour and some jewellery. My crit mit has gone up from 109% to 142%, my crit bonus / crit chance / potency / resists have all rocketed. The only thing I have seen a detrimental difference to is my multi attack. I have lost about 20%.

The best way to see how all this shapes up is of course to run a few instances, but it took so long to reset everything I didn’t have time last night, so I headed to the training dummies to see what difference the changes had made. For my ‘control’ aspect of the test, I always use the group dummies (which creates about 10 level matched heroic dummies), and then kill three of them before ending the combat, to see how my DPS fared. The reason I do it that way is to simulate being in a group. Yes, I won’t have group buffs, but I reckon the time it takes to do those three is akin to a normal group encounter when you have a full group backing you up. My previous DPS high on this test was 42k. I did it twice last night and got 86k and 91k. So if that equates to a similar improvement in instances, then I’m happy with the game update. Yes there are a few teething problems, but then again there always is. They will sort them all eventually I’m sure. I’m not sure however, how long ‘eventually’ will be.

One of the things to consider, even though they have had the update improvements on test, is how it will affect the rest of the game play. Use Voltaan as an example. If from the re-itemisation like me many have been able to utilise previously won gear that is of a high standard and they generally see almost a 100% increase in their performance, then will this not trivialise many of the existing instances (aside from the already mega tough ones)? I ran through a couple of instances the night before the revamp and to be honest that was kinda easy as it stood. I’m thinking it will be cake now.

You see that’s one of the problems with such big revamps to a system. The knock on effects will come to light over the coming months, and as usual, hotfixes will follow to sort them. This isn’t a moan, it’s just the accepted way of how things work in EQ2 development. And let’s be honest, despite the hiccups, despite the unknown long term affects of the GU, the game is still an amazing one with so much detailed and fantastic content that even if they messed it up big style, I’d probably still log in to experience Norrath.

Sometimes we expect miracles from SoE because we pay them every month. Reality is somewhat far away from that though. Look at the actual stats. 54,000 items to re-itemise, and that was just a part of the GU. Now I pretty sure the dev team probably only has about 30 - 40 employees, if that, and there is a huge amount of work there for such a small number. Yes, there is the argument that they should employ more staff with our subs to speed things up and to make for better content. But my stance against that is a simple one. Too many cooks spoil the broth. What I mean by this, is quantity does not necessarily equate to quality. SoE have a good team. Yes it takes a little time for them to get it right, but they usually do, and usually with style (eventually). It’s always easy to focus on the bad stuff. But look a little more carefully past the surface and it becomes apparent that ‘there is more to heaven and earth my dear Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy’. Yup, I’m in an optimistic mood today.

Right, now I have to ring Ema and get her to unequip all my stuff again!

Be well.

Finally. DoV instance cherry = broken

2011-08-24T03:28:00.000-07:00

Last night was a blast. I’m quite shocked to hear myself say that about an evening spent inside a couple of DoV instances, but I really had a lot of fun. I grouped up with Emarald and Jahf with a view to learning some of the new (to me) DoV instances for both Voltaan and our friends SK, Hagras. We headed off to Forgotten Pools and after to The Ascent, and I was pretty shocked at how easy it was. The first instance Haggy tanked and the second one in Ascent, I had a bash at. Thanks to all who trooped me through.

For my first time tanking in DoV I’m pretty happy with how it went. There were no deaths, no issues with aggro, aside from Jahfs Brig, but that’s par for the course where decent Brigs are concerned as they have almost no hate reduction and high dps, and to be honest it wasn’t too much of an issue, I usually managed to grab the mob back with one of my many snaps. It was a challenge though as Jahfs Brig was churning out some very nice numbers, in debuff spec no-less! I’m glad he wasn’t in DPS spec. The content of the zones themselves were quite fun too, especially the nameds. There were some funky scripts for the bosses and I personally liked the sticky wall guy [technical term], although everyone else seems to hate him. Overall it was very smooth and there were no issues to be had, aggro management was ok’ish, and my DPS was very good considering the equipment I have. Jahf topped the zone wide with about 60k I think it was, and I came in second with 28k zonewide. Not brilliant numbers for me, but certainly OK and my first run at a DoV zone went well. It seems weird to have been playing the game since the expansion release, yet never having done anything other than some of the solo timeline.

Anyhow, I’ve been getting all excited because my Bro tells me last night before he logged that he has now completed the first four solo type quests for his Warden epic weapon, and it’s time to move on to the heroic stuff. I think tonight we will need to hit Karnor’s Castle for Levik, Chardok to get an update from trash mobs that are pretty deep in the dungeon (past the red gate I think) and finally to Sebilis to grab something off the named in the secret lab. If my Bro is up for it tonight, I think we will quite easily manage to get all three updates done. If they don’t have to be done in order, I think we’ll do Seb first as we have been there so much over the last week that if we get that out the way, we can then spend the rest of the evening enjoying new content (for Merecraft).

I’m looking forward to taking Mere in Chardok. I think we’ll spend an extra ten minutes getting all of the gate keys for him, so he can return whenever he likes and not get blocked at the gates. We may even do a quick run of the small Korucust instance for the AA as it doesn’t take long at all. It should all be great fun whatever we decide to do.

One thing Ema was talking to me about was trying to have a crazy fun night when Merecraft has his fabled version of his weapon, and try and get him his Mythical update in one night. That’s three raid mobs. Two of which are near the end of a raid instance. It should be fun and I actually think it’s doable in one night, especially if Volt feign deaths his way to some of them then summons the group, although that will probably only work in Veeshan’s Peak. That would mean, Protector’s Realm (item drops off last mob), Temple of Kor’Sha (think item drops from Seldrach or something, again last mob from what I recall) then finally it would be into Veeshan’s Peak to take out that pesky Cinder Wasp Queen. I’ve always wondered about that update. It seems strange to have a final mob of a Myth weapon timeline to be a mob that appears in the middle of an encounter and isn’t the actual focus of the fight. Anyhow, that’s the last one. I reckon it’s doable in a couple of hours, probably actually a lot less considering the steps forward in equipment (if SoE don’t mess up itemisation). Oh, one thing worth noting if you are doing the Myth warden raid version. The item you get off the bosses that you need for the update, needs to be consumed within the zone before zone out, as it’s a no-zone item. If you zone out before using it, you’ll have to run the raid instance again to get your update. One night Myth updates would be cool though. I remember how long it took to get mine!

Be well.

A Jolly Spiffing Update

2011-08-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

Lot’s of EQ2 news right now. Let’s start with GU61 which is upcoming ~~today~~, sorry, Thursday. Yup it’s been delayed for a couple of days so the Devs have a chance to make sure they have the itemisation correct. I’m thinking that with 54,000 items to review and change the stats for, there are likely to be some mistakes. Already there are a few rumblings that some items not only have changed stats but have changed archetype also. Hopefully this won’t affect too many folks or any really popular items, but if it does there may be some pretty pissed off folks who log in to find they can no longer use some of their most treasured items. I’m actually thinking that hopefully, there really will be only a few circumstances where this is true.

Additionally all this re-itemisation has a very beneficial side line. That being that all of your attuned stuff, be it on your toon, in your bags, in your bank or in your house vault, will now become un-attuned and if you are wearing the item at the time and it is adorned, your adornment will be removed also. Don’t worry you won’t lose your adorn, it should be placed in your bags. Now what I have done is try and think laterally on this. None of my current equipment on Voltaan needs to have its adornments removed, so I have stripped him naked and placed those items in my bags. What I have done is equip all his old gear that he wore in each slot prior to his upgrade. That means that I will get about 6 red adorns back and multiple silver. They can go in my bank and at least I won’t have to fork out a huge amount should I level another toon that could use them. Also if everything becomes un-attuned, I am not sure I will ever need to adventure again for kit as all my toons never get rid of their previous gear, I just bank it. I think I may be able to open an EQ2Mart for my alts after this update.

So, what else is coming? Well, for someone who seems to have a fair amount of Arasai critters on my character list there is good news that come level 85 and GU61, Faes and Arasai will be able to complete a quest that grants them the ability to fly. When the update is live it can be picked up from the Goahmari encampment in Great Divide, just like the Griffon quests. I’m quite looking forward to this. It really is about time that our little winged cousins have a chance to get airborne. Now I just want totally customisable wings. Check out the doctored picky of Emarald to see what I mean.

*please hum Dambusters theme*
What Ho! Ema joins the Brylcream Boys

There are a couple of dynamic dungeons coming up too in the next update. These are called ‘dynamic’ as there are apparently up to 14 different mob sets that you can get given when you zone in. This means that each time entering will be a different challenge, although I’m not sure if that includes nameds. Both are in the Desert of Flames expansion and seem to be set around the Silent City area. The zones match your level from 60 to 90 and apparently the mobs do drop some quite nice stuff, although I’m not sure if that was pre-itemisation changes, or after.

The first part of the Beastlords preview quest will be arriving also. There will be no spoilers here, this is just a warning to keep an eye out for it.

As for DoV content there should be two more questlines appear in Eastern Wastes, which is just what the zone needs. A great looking zone, but without too much substance. Faction quests with the Goahmari Stormfeathers and the Threal’Gorr Orcs will be appearing to beef out the zone and its content a little. Hopefully it will work. For an expansion I dislike, it’s refreshing to find a zone I like, and that the Devs are paying it some attention to make it better.

Overall I’m looking forward to GU61 with some trepidation and not a little bit of hope. If it goes well and as intended I can foresee solidification of an already great game. If it goes wrong (why is my SoE radar telling me it’s going to have issues?), then as usual there will be the normal uproar, the normal feeble responses from SoE and then a resolution to the problem two years later.

As for my gaming, I have of course been playing EQ2 (as well as a bit of DIRT2). Although my Bro’s playtime is understandably a little restricted in EQ2 currently, he has nevertheless managed to get him to 80th level (GRATS MERE!), has hammered out all of his Reet faction already and has picked up that pesky Epic weapon starter. So things are actually moving a quite a pace. I’m hoping we should be able to get him his epic soon. Perhaps we should start working on it tonight. I hope so. For some sick reason, I really really enjoy doing the old epic quests, even to the point of helping others gives me just as much of a rush. I also prefer to get an epic myth’d ‘properly’ before doing the enervated. Weird huh? But lots of fun. Well, whatever the reasoning behind my unstable thoughts, they are there, and we have an Epic to do! Let’s crack on.

Be well.

Lord of the Klakrok Drones

2011-08-17T03:25:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the delay in posts. Work has seen me travelling again. I'm back now, so let's crack on.

I was having a rather interesting conversation the other day with a very good friend of mine about attitude. Specifically about how those who play EQ2 develop theirs and how they conduct themselves during their sessions online. During the conversation we pulled apart the issue of how those who play act and the conclusions were interesting. The subject of EQ2 being only a game was raised and that would it be realistic to attach the thoughts here to such a situation. It was decided in the end, most definitely. Look at your guild. Look at the different people who play. There are pensioners, students, career folks, teachers, and so on. The game itself is actually a nice slice of society and a good indication for being considered as a social experiment.

So, as I said above, when I say ‘conduct themselves’ I mean basically how those that play interact with the rest of the community. At one stage I mentioned that I saw it having the possibility of being a social experiment and that studying how those who play the game interact with others of varying different social groups within the game can give a valuable insight in to a nice slice of our society, through a very specific window, with some very interesting influencing factors. The main one of course being the removal of actual ‘standing in front of me’ contact during these interactions and something I call ‘The Barrier’, which I’ll explain later.

How people interact when personal contact is removed, and there is no knowledge of the individual themselves, just an avatar and a ‘forwarded’ back story can vary quite dramatically compared to how that person would perhaps treat the other if they were face to face in real life. Now the back story is important. The back story is what I refer to as the information given to you by that particular person prior to the interaction. This can vary wildly depending on how well you know the person. The back story you have on a long standing guildy will obviously be much more comprehensive compared to the back story of a group member you have just met. The back story with a person regarded as a friend, to the extent of where those actually interact outside of the game (albeit not usually in person but on social networking sites, email etc) can be thick with history and emotional investment also.

The interesting part of this to me is the removal of actual personal interaction. This links with the current actions in game to give us our result and how we can then categorise how that person acts or reacts in that certain situation. Sounds a bit convoluted huh? Well, by this I mean how people interact really does depend on what they are doing at the time in game, the history and back story between the two and most importantly, the removal of face to face interaction (even if voice chat is being used).

There is another factor (amongst many), influencing how folks interact in game too that I mentioned above. That is what I call ‘The Barrier’. I see this as quite simply the monitor. Your computer screen. It links in nicely with the non-face to face situation and can reinforce the players attitude, depending on what stance they are taking. With this side of the equation we look at how someone acts differently than they normally would due to the barrier and the sense of added protection it can give. The one way mirror if the player so chooses that is placed in front of them during their play sessions can either stimulate their attitude or crystallise the repercussions of such an attitude. With this I mean good and bad can come from it. If you look at the example of the guildy who is having extreme real life issues, if shared, this can cause distress due to the rest of the guildies and their inability to do anything about it. In turn stimulating some sort of action that may not be totally to the satisfaction of those witnessing the event, but at least gives a sense that they are doing ‘something’ to help. The ‘Barrier’ can provide both frustration and protection it seems.

If someone has a reputation for being a bit of an idiot it may well be that that person uses the barrier to offer perceived protection when spouting their effluence. In circumstances such as this those can utilise the their preconceptions about how they are protected to act in a manner they would normally not do so, even to their friends. To those who are emotionally invested with those close around them can even use this ‘barrier’ to their advantage when they see fit. Erecting it so to speak when the situation so requires. This is perhaps one of the saddest parts about this. It basically makes it easier for those who act in this manner to compartmentalise their behaviour to interacting with a computer game and screen, not actual real people that in reality they care about. Erect the ‘Barrier’ acknowledge its existence and it really can change how some interact with others. Because of the barrier, I have lost count of the amount of times I have seen folks who are supposed to be friends, have issues with each other.

There are of course many other influencing factors that guides how those react and act within the game scenario, whilst hidden behind their barrier. One of course is that there are nasty folks out there, plain and simple. The anonymity of the screen just makes an already bad person worse. But that’s not what I am interested in. My main focus is fascinated by those who supposedly care about each other in game and in addition out of the game, STILL utilise the ‘Barrier’ at times when it suits them. Even though that person is a friend, add the current action (for example looting a nice big Exquisite chest), add the current emotion (perhaps stressed, relaxed, drunk, etc) add the ‘barrier’ factor giving perceived protection from not only physical hurt but emotional, and then you add the most important factor of all. What that person is REALLY like. I mean deep down inside. Their inner most being. How they would react when repercussion was not a consideration (an impression falsely given by the ‘Barrier’). How they would ‘wish to act in any given situation is usually poles apart from how they do actually act. Include all those factors, especially the barrier and a fair amount of the time, we can get a glimpse in to the real person behind the screen, simply from how they react. The effect is magnified simply by the sense of removal which can be employed when required (again depending on current action etc). In some ways we actually get a better look at the person than if we had met them in real life only where pretence and obfuscation can easily be employed to hide a persons real feelings. And that’s the point, if someone has an edge to their personality, you’re much more likely to s ee it surface in game than if you were in real life. Because in game, you can always head for the /camp command, and as a far as I am aware, there isn’t a workable one of those for real life yet.

I kind of see it as a Lord of the Flies thing. Removal of control and expected behaviour due to a situational anomaly. In the Lord of the Flies, the kids were trapped on an island and without rules their society operates, but has huge issues and reactions all fed by the situation itself and human emotion. For example, fear of the beast drives the boys to kill Simon when he returns to tell them of its ‘real’ nature, mistaking him for the beast itself. It all sounds a bit dramatic, but think of the correlations. In the case of the book and film, the reactions of the kids is deeply affected by the fact they are no longer subject to the law and rules of general society. They have their protection from the emotional and moral questions of crossing those barriers. In EQ2, it really isn’t that much different. The ‘Barrier’ as I keep referring to it as, may as well feel like the removal of laws, regulation and control and as such behaviour can revert to a truer state to that particular individual, simply because of their removed situation and their perceived freedom to act as they please exposing their true nature.

It’s a funny old thing EQ2, seeing folks true personality out and conversely seeing the false personalities created. Luckily, there are a huge amount of folks out there who play are just themselves and act as they would with others no matter if it is behind a screen or not. Hopefully when playing you surround yourselves with such folks and be able to recognise it when you see it. It’s not so easy though. The Barrier sees to that.

There is one area I haven’t touched upon, and it reflects quite starkly the musings I have laid out above. It’s the website EQ2 Flames. A more perfect example of how differently folks act behind a screen can possibly not be found. Read the posts, then imagine all those folks in a room together. Would they really be so frank and forward in their opinions? Yeah, some would, but the vast majority would probably not dream of acting as such, when brought from behind their ‘Barrier’.

Be well.

Construction Complete

2011-08-05T16:28:00.000-07:00

A picture tells a thousand words...

Yeah. That didn't work in school either when I submitted a picture of my hamster instead of a thousand word essay...got me detention. Anyhow, pictures..it's finished. If you want to visit, name of 'Voltaan', Gorowyn 6 room on Antonia Bayle server. Whilst you are there have a cocktail in the house itself at Club Tropicana. Go, help yourself. Relax. The drinks are free. Or you could head west along the beach from the Lodge then south to the Wall of Bone. Enjoy.

From the Lookout Tower

The Lake with Othmir Ninja Turtle

The Back Porch, from the lake

Back Porch - Fishing Kit

East Side of the Lodge

North East corner and Front Porch

Front Porch

Front Door

South West Corner - Back Porch from Lake

Front Porch with Granpappy Volts Rockin' Chair

Front Door through to Volts wash station.

Weapon Racks and the The Great Tree

Volts only luxury

O.K. Maybe the White lion blanket is a bit of a comfort too

From Voltaan's Bedroom

I think the word is functional

Kitchen area

Desk. Correspondence doesn't write itself you know

Front Door and Dining Table. One setting. I do have friends. Honest

Supplies. Sacks of grain and fish filleting table

Relaxing Back Porch Comfy Reader

Hay. Wheelbarrow. Just need some animals now. It's stuffing for my bed. OK?


Forge area. Skins drying. Fish curing. Gnomish Generators. Volts an old man. Central heating is needed!

Barrels. Forge.

The Old Man and his weird dress sense

Fishing for two. See! He has friends.

The Main Lodge. Just enough room for one Barbarian.

Fresh bread and a nice Chicken Pie

The Main Lodge

That was a bit of a sensory overload huh? Sorry about that. Thanks for looking.

Be well.

300!

2011-08-05T01:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I hit 300 AAs the other night. Thanks to my old friends Jahf, Ratty and Tymar and Aleksi, and of course the devastatingly sexah Ema, we powered through Chardok time and time again and in no time whatsoever, it was ding 300. I also hit Karnors Castle thanks to advice from Jahf (think I have mentioned that before) who suggested I mentor down and plough through there. It worked a treat, mebbe even a little quicker than the Chardok exp. Either way both instances were awesome and the company even better. Thanks for your help folks, Volt is now a powerhouse once more!

As you know my Bro is not in game at the moment tending to his lovely new addition. I have been spending my time finishing my Hunters Lodge. Yup, it’s now done. All the finishing touches have been made aside from one fence line I have yet to still lay. I must say I’m pretty pleased with it. I only used the editor a couple of times to make sure the sloping roof and adjoining walls worked out ok. They kinda still look a bit weird to my eyes, not sure what I’ll do to fix that but at the moment it is fine. I have tried, like I always do, to make it about the small details of the place. For example, it’s a hunting lodge, so you’ll not see any nice shiny furniture in there. Everything is rough and mostly wooden in keeping with what you would expect to see in a Hunters Lodge. I like the small details whilst decorating and Jahf commented the same thing to me, that often it is the little things that adds to the whole ambience of a house. Anyhow, I’ll add some piccies in a bit. I may even do a video walkthrough.

Ema has been hitting her raiding pretty hard recently and has her kit almost up to scratch. So much so she is looking to gear up her Coercer already. She has only been back raiding for a few weeks. This got me thinking about if I would like to return to the raid scene. In every expansion since DoF I have been part of a raid force and have either dabbled or seriously hit the top tier content. The most concentrated raid periods were during Kingdom of Sky and Sentinels Fate expansions. I really do enjoy it. It’s exciting, fun to hang out with your mates and after many beat downs, it’s always nice to conquer very tough new content, to progress and to witness the knock on effect of getting better kit. It’s quite pleasant to watch yourself become pretty uber.

But raiding does have its down sides. Anyone who has ever raided in any MMO will know this. From taking up a lot more of your time, to dealing with (sometimes) those who seem to be in the MMOSPG (massively multimedia online special population group – yes, I made this up..but they’re out there..beware!). From the endless waiting around to lost rolls in favour of those who only raid once in a millennia. The pitfalls are many and this got me to thinking. The crummy stuff does crop up a fair bit. You DO spend a huge amount of time waiting round. It’s unavoidable, whilst the raid force prepares and hears strats of how they are going to defeat the new content, whilst those have afks, or switch out toons for particular mobs, there is always some degree of running to stand still. But the feeling when you get that synergy between the raid members and everything flows as it should really is quite a buzz, especially the very first time you defeat new content.

However, one of the biggest downfalls for me that currently over-rides all the good stuff to be experienced in raiding, and the one that means I really am not going to be getting involved in DoV raiding for the foreseeable future is the extra time and more importantly the extra commitment. You are committed to it if you become part of a raid force. Because that’s exactly what it is. It’s not a raid solo mob, it’s a damn big group with 24 people in it. You can’t just pick and choose where and when you will raid when there are 23 other folks depending on you to do your bit. It’s a commitment to the game and your fellow raiders, and that is why I cannot get back in to raiding just yet. I have so much other stuff going on, I really couldn’t justify allocating more of my time to the game and more regimented time at that.

When I play currently, I don’t want it to be an issue if I need to go afk for 10 minutes. I don’t want the rush-rush to get kit and become uber again. I don’t need it. I still get to chat to my mates who do raid and I still pick up the odd piece of loots that my old raid syndicate and bunch of mates collect when they have no one who can use it. I guess what I am trying to say is that at the moment old Volt just wants to put his feet up in his new Hunters Lodge, relax and enjoy his retirement, helping out friends and guildies alike, as and when they need it. It’s time for Volt to experience some relaxation EQ2 style. Bring on the Nayad masseuse.

Be well.

Hunter's Lodge

2011-07-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

The new housing options are now available on the Marketplace in EQ2. Anyone who knows me will know that I have been getting a little bit excited about the ‘blank canvass’ islands that are going to be available to purchase. I had heard that they were going to be based upon Temple Isle in Tenebrous Tangle, and was pretty made up about that. Even if they had removed all of the temples and ruins, it would still be an awesome place to create some structures. But when my Bro shouted up the other night to let me know he was checking them out and “it’s just a big flat island really with a waterfall”, I was a little perplexed. Where was my Tenebrous Tangle island? Wishing to see this with my own eyes I hopped over to South Freeport to take a gander. And he was right!

Yup, that’s all it is. A big flat grassy island that looks like it is flat enough for a ball pitch. There is a waterfall too, coming from an island way way above your head in to a tiny pool. That’s your lot. There is nothing more. So, my enthusiasm well and truly deflated I put away my hopes of having a cool island of my own and Mere and I decided to head off and quest some.

I was disappointed with the islands truth be told. As Mere and I discussed at the time we are absolutely sure there will be some amazing creations on these islands and in just a short space of time we came up with some great ideas. A Country Club & Spa, A Football Pitch, Mini Golf & amusements are just a few. There is a huge amount of potential there for development and perhaps moving out to the other very distant islands you can see. But, it’s not for me. I wanted nooks and crannies, little valleys and tranquil pools. Woods and streams. So, I decided I wasn’t going to move house. I am keeping Voltaans Gorowyn home but am revamping the outside area. Out goes the under construction ‘Fort Brakkarg’ with just the Wall of Bone remaining to protect my little property and in comes the new falling down cottage I am building for Voltaans home. Well, it’s not falling down just yet, but it has got a tree growing in to the construction somewhere! I’ll add piccies of the building site later. It’s going to be a labour of love and will probably take me some time as I dislike using the layout editor for anything further than changing the angle of an item which I have had to do already to get the slope of the roof tiles. Piccies and more after the jump..

As for the adventuring side of the game, as ever Mere and I have been having a blast progressing the RoK questlines and it now seems that we have pretty much tied everything up in Fens of Nathsar and are ready to move fully in to Kunzar Jungle. We’ve already been there a couple of times to get involved with the Kurn’s Tower access quest and to do just enough to not get killed in Jinisk. We needed to complete the Kurn’s access quest to gain a lot more faction with the Bellywhumpers, so that we could then purchase the item needed to return to Rillis with to complete the Bellywhumper quests part of the Fens timeline. Actually i think that’s the first time I have bothered to get those last few Burynai quests. I usually just get bored then move in to Kunzar early.

Kunzar has a crazy amount of quests. You look at your completed journal for quests in Kylong and Fens and each probably range between 80 and 90 quests completed. I was checking my Kunzar ones the other day on Voltaan and I have 104 completed and I know I haven’t yet done them all. There is just so much to do there. I like Kunzar Jungle. It doesn’t seem as large as Kylong, Fens or Jarsath and I reckon probably is the smallest overland zone in the RoK expansion. But I do like it. It has some fun questlines and interesting areas and storylines. It also has some really fun things, like the title reward ‘Rubble Rabble Rouser’. Useless, but fun! It also has some great outdoor areas such as the City of Mist and some lovely mob surprises walking around, sometime nicely Epic. I do really like the zone and especially like Sebilis as a shared zone.

It doesn't look like I will be doing too much Kunzar stuff currently though as Merecraft is going to be away from game for a little time with the family. In the mean time I'll be putting the final touches to my Hunter's Lodge. As promised, here are some pics of the construction in progress.

Be well.

Who's a clever little asshat?

2011-07-25T02:42:00.000-07:00

This weekend saw the completion of the Wizard Spire event in Eastern Wastes and the Dragon Ring event in Great Divide. I didn’t take part in the Dragon Ring event, but I was lucky enough to be about when the Wizard Spire final quest popped at 99.7% completion of the Spires. At the time I was just standing around and Jahf (on his Ranger I think) happened to be stood near me and we ended up grouping in preparation for the final event quest.

I cannot explain how many player characters were there at the Spires in Eastern Wastes, but it sure as hell caused some devilish server/instance lag. At one point the dude you have to speak to (Researcher Kilat I think) was not to be found anywhere, and masses upon masses of PC toons hovering all in the same area waiting for the NPC that would be buried under all of the PCs meant that for about 20 minutes I couldn’t even see him let alone target him. As it happens, when Jahf and I popped off to gather some crystals to help hurry up the progression of the event and all of a sudden it moved forward pretty damn fast and we had to make the hop back to the Spires quickly. Jahf very cleverly warned me to delete the quest originally given to me for those Teleportation coin thingies (tokens) and as we approached the Spires, I automatically got offered Researcher Kilats quest for the final epic battle and a very nice 500 tokens.

So, Jahf and I were sat under the tent, waxing lyrical about the benefits of pulling in a tent to negate knockback, when we both moved forward as it seemed the many raids present were gathering ready for the start of the event. It wasn’t until we got closer to the crowd that we realised it had already started, but the lag was so so bad, we could only see the combat text “Soandso is stunned!” and so on. It was quite clear the battle was taking place, but absolutely no NPC mobs were to be seen to actually try and hit. It was that way for the whole fight. It was clear a battle was going on around us, but I could not see one mob, just lots of damage being done and heals going on. I was concerned about not getting enough credit to get the quest update to I ran around like a crazed idiot spamming my area effect spells. But still nothing. After the fight had ended my quest thankfully updated, even though I hadn’t hit one mob. Strangest thing though. After the battle to see what the hell happened I switched windows to my ACT which had been bubbling away in the background and it hadn’t even registered the battle. The list was empty. As far as it was concerned I may as well had been sunning myself on Antonica Beaches.

What Jahf pointed out to me a little later was pretty cool though. One of the GMs (I can’t recall his name, Jahf help me! Think it was Gnil...something or other) had been in chat channels checking that all those present had gotten the quest updates/rewards as they were aware of the laggy bug that was happening when the fight was taking place and they just wished to make sure that no one who was there got left out, which I thought was pretty darn cool of them. Anyhow, I got my update and my many Tokens. Which I promptly spent on two replica Wizard Spires, a couple bags of teleporters and plenty of shards. It was only after I had done this though that I realised that there was a merchant at the Dragon Ring event too and I had perhaps missed out on some cool loots.

I headed over there straight away to find out and to my dismay there was a really cool replica of the Dragon Ring available for 25 tokens. I only had two left! Because both the Spires and the Dragon Ring events had been completed, the only way to get more tokens was from the shiny like collectables found around the event areas as ground spawns. So, I spent the next hour scouring the area and gathering enough until I could buy a replica of the Ring event. Mostly when I was harvesting these collectables, the PCs were gracious and I tried to do the same where if I saw another near a shiny token collectable, I stayed away. Mostly they did the same for me too. However, as always there was this one particularly inspiring individual who had either an excellent connection, amazing reflexes, or a hack of some sort. He would run up to a node and even if I had started harvesting it, my green progression bar would conclude only to be told, ‘There is a lottery for that loot already in progress’. He did this to me numerous times. I was going to report him, but then realised I could not be bothered to waste more of my time on such a well rounded and obviously highly educated individual and just sent him a /tell. “You’re a clever little fukker eh?”, I got a standard “I guess” answer and I just left it. I only needed two more spawns at that point anyhow and as I said, my time is too precious to be spending with those of such higher social standing than me. I could name him, but then again, I can’t be bothered. Those who deal with him will already know of his sterling quality as a human being.

Is it just me or is my English sarcasm taking a real royal outing today?

Right –o, that’s me done for the minute. Thanks to Jahf for the Spire event fun and help whilst there. I’ll be back soon with an update on Mere’s and my progression through Kunark.

Be well.

The Warrior & The Warden

2011-07-22T13:49:00.000-07:00

I had fun making it. Hope you have fun boring yourselves stupid for 5 minutes !

Be well.

A look in to the looking glass

2011-07-21T07:17:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the guys over at EQ2Wire, I have a nice list of things that we can expect from the Devs in Eq2 from now until the new expansion has hit and beyond. GU -61 promises to be one of the biggest updates we have had for some time and sees some truly game-play changing items on it’s agenda. I have supplemented the full list below,. My initial thoughts / comments on each section can be found in red.

Game Update 61 – The War of Zek

Dynamic Dungeons

* New versions of Silent City and Djinn Master’s Prism.

* Encounters are randomized when you enter

* Dungeons scale dynamically 60-90

* Test bed for a new flavour of content creation.

- Sounds interesting. I’m intrigued by how they will achieve a correct balance to a dungeon when they will be randomised. I guess they will not be totally randomised but probably more like, operating within set parameters.

The War of Zek

* Plane of War content

* New dungeon (normal and hard)

* New raid (normal and hard)

- New stuff is good, as long as it is good

Itemization Changes

* Stats revision

* Increase # of stats

* Add auto attack for casters and priests

* increasing headroom on old stats

* Re-itemize 20-90

* Major AA revamp

* Class focus revision

- WHY WHY WHY??? The rest of the suggestions are great, but there is no need to mess with the level 20 to say 75 itemisation. It just isn’t worth it and messing about with that could have some pretty nasty knock on effects. Leave the re-itemisation alone and concentrate on some of the other decent and required stuff in the above list.

Tradeskill Crafting AAs

* 3 rows of abilities — 10 points each row. max 25 points for crafting AAs

* Progress, Durability, Double Harvest Chance

* Crafting Stats Progress, Durability, Success Chance

* Increase chance of harvesting a rare

- Me no tradeskilly really, although I can see how this would be like mega useful, so gets a thumbs up from me.

House Rating System

* Decorate your house, publish it for others to see

* Leaderboard (48 hour falloff)

* Awards for staying on leaderboard

* Hall of Fame system

* 5 star rating system

- This is going to be fantastic. Those of you who know me know I love to decorate and create. Already I have some rather special ideas about what I am going to create.

Dungeon Finder System

* Any size group can queue up

* Matchmaker system. you can disband if you want.

* Any Dungeon

* Get XP boost for being flexible

* Initially same-server only, cross-server later

- I’m really liking this. I love what they are doing with dungeon design too (see later). This should make PuGs pretty darn easy to get balanced and should see an end to that horrible moment when you realise there’s a Zerker, Pally and Brawler in your group...and you’re an SK. Things should be a lot more balanced with this matchmaker system where PuGs are concerned..

GU61 More stuff

* Fae/Arasai Flying (level 85, must complete a quest)

* New content in Eastern Wastes

* Beastlord prelude event

* Velious signature line update

- Arasai / Faes get to fly. About time really imho.

Game Update 61 is released in August – Very soon really, since latest expansion. Not sure if that’s good, or if SoE rushed things.

Freeport — Lucan Gets Serious

* Lucan’s Lore — Lucan was kidnapped

* His captor was killed

* Lucan crushed his usurpers, levied a new army, and now seeks to dominate and control

* Freeport revamp will have a ton of lore related to it

All (Evil) Roads Lead to Freeport

* Evil starter areas lead to Freeport, not Butcherblock Mts

* Multi-level questing hub

* Race and Class specific quest lines

* Instances within the city (hoods, sewers) — some quests will cause NPCs to attack

* Public quests in Commonlands

* Special Guards watching the area around Freeport (leapers and gliders, juggernauts)

* Exploratory content

Freeport Unification (in progress)

* Entire Freeport city can be explored without zoning, excluding the suburbs

- I’m really liking all of the Freeport ideas. I generally play evil toons and as such I know the zones well and have a particular fondness for them. Pièce de résistance will be the new quest hub and hopefully smooth running of the now BIG instance. Freeport should be a buzzing city once more! Check out the design differences expected after the revamp...

The Age of Discovery expansion

Chock Full of Features

* The Age of Discovery focuses on features that open up new ways to play the game.

* Game Updates is where the content/zones are.

ROLL OUT CALENDAR

GU61: BYOD (August 2010)

GU62: Freeport (November 2010)

GU63: Velious (February 2011)

GU64: Velious (May 2011)

GU65: Qeynos (August 2011)

Tradeskill Apprentices

* Acquire an apprentice via quest at level 30

* Customizable (race, name, gender, clothing)

* Set tasks, the longer the task the greater the reward

* Train your apprentice over time

* Able to make best-in-slot items over time but Heirloom

Item Reforging and AA Limit Increase

* Reforge your powerful items and a shift stat bonuses around

* Allow player customization of particle effects on powerful weapons

* Additional the AA limit gets boosted to add more AA choices

- Liking this very much. It’s a discussion I have had previously with Jahf. We both thought this should be approached. Let’s just hope they get the setup right and don’t unbalance everything once again, I’m not holding my breath.

Mercenaries

* Hired help for small group or soloing situations

* You pay them gold/platinum

* They help you destroy stuff

* They take a small cut of coin and XP gained

* One mercenary per character

* Choose from any of four combat types

* Healer, tank, melee DPS, ranged DPS

* But here’s where it gets fun….

Mercenaries are Varied

* Just because there’s only 4 merc types doesn’t mean the variety stops there

* Different AI brains

* Different stats

* Different spells

* A healer you get in Neriak may think differently, have different spells, even different stat emphasis than one * you get in Qeynos.

* And you can assign them behaviors (like pets).

* Mercenaries are Visual.

* Races are city-specific.

* Customize appearance.

* Some are merchant bought.

* They’re your Perma-Pals.

* They level up, you never outgrow them.

- So, Mercenaries are an awesome idea. I’m particularly impressed in that they have not just launched Mercs on their own. If you think about the dynamic they are addressing here, it’s solo, vs. group content. But more importantly the gap in between the two. Those situations when you and your duoing partner really could do with being a Quattro rather than a Duo. SoE are aware and have long been so, concerning the fact that most folks solo their way to at least 80 and sometimes 90th level. This was, using the Mercs and in addition, using the Dungeon Finder System above a great great idea. One of the big bugbears of the game (solo play and the lonesome feeling!) has been addressed. No longer are you alone! More options have opened up to fill your nights with pseudo company!

World Lore Mercenaries

* Some mercenaries aren’t available from merchants

* You might be able to hire Lucan for 1000p per hour

* Hirable for a time

* Characters from Norrath

* Extremely rare spawns

- Ohhh, this could be good. I would love to have someone famous cruising around with me. Imagine that! “Hi, how you doing. Let me introduce you to my friend, Fippy Darkpaw”....”This is my buddy, goes by the name of Mayong...”

BEASTLORD

* Vintage character class with new emerging gameplay

DISCLAIMER WARNING

**What you are about to hear about the Beastlord is subject to change!!!**

* Beastlord Lore

* The Truespirit retreated when the gods did

* Beastlords faded away, unable to bond with spirits

* Beastlords are Scouts

* Leather wearers

* Brawler like weapons

* Melee DPS class, on par with other top-tier DPS

* Beastlords are a Pet Class (Warders)

* Pet class on Steroids

* Should always use a Warder to be effective

* Can collect and use many different types of Warders

Beastlord Warders (pets)

* Different Warders have different abilities, hotbars, AA lines

* More utility, damage, combat

* Use stances to affect what abilities become important

- I’m keeping my opinion closed at the moment on Beastlords. I really do need to have more of a look at them when they go live to get a proper impression of gameplay and how they will fit in with the rest of the EQ2 clan. I left EQ1 just before they were released and never did get to play one.

Design Your Own Dungeon

– a feature so powerful, it deserves its own presentation

DISCLAIMER — Mock-up art, this is work in progress

Be a Builder

* Dungeon Maps, Creater Spawners, Traps, Decorations you have to go out and quest, raid, tradeskill to get them

*Come back and build with the enhanced housing system. You teleport into the dungeon and you get an extremely advanced housing interface. Housing will eventually get the new design system.

*Intuitive UI and experimentation modes

So you’ve built it, now publish it!

* Publish your dungeon

* Watch your NPC minions slaughter real players in real time

* Compete against other Builders on leaderboards for player ratings

* Earn builder tokens redeemable for builder-only items. BYOD items only available for Tokens

Builders get Reputation

* Ready to Play? Find your Dungeon

* Shows up in the Dungeon Finder System

* Review leaderboards, screenshots, player ratings

* Play solo, or woith a group. all part of the dungeon finder system

* When you enter a dungeon, you are collecting adventurer NPCs to run the Dungeon. The NPCs have a limited set of abilities. You cannot play a player-made dungeon as your own character. (groan)

* Tokens to buy loot for your real characters.

* How do you keep from exploiting these zones by making an easy zone with just mobs?

* When we launch, there will be one game type, Survive through the dungeon and kill boss at the end.

* Automated Challenge Rating system to determine rewards for finishing the dungeon. Difficult to exploit. The creator script detects the difficulty of the zone by determining the shortest path in the dungeon.

DYOD has Fringe Benefits for the rest of the game:

* House rating system

* Dungeon Finder for regular dungeons

- Design your own dungeon is so funky. I’m looking forward to this a great deal. It can add an element of uniqueness and obviously lets those who are good at this sort of thing create genuinely fun content. In games such as Company of Heroes, map design has long been a part of the fun. If they can make it work here, there are bound to be some wonderful creations. Think of all the creations that will be based on fun genres/franchises and other fun stuff that we already know. Fancy a Star Ship Enterprise? A copy of the Alien vrs Predator Pyramid? Jabba the Hutts Palace? Sounds like fun anyhow. having said all of that, there is one huge huge thing I have failed to mention. Roleplayers. How amazing will it be to create your own little instances to back up the roleplay story you are running for your guild. The Dungeon where your guild leader has been imprisoned, the Tower where the antidote to the poison that your guild strategist has been given! this has the opportunity to really open things up for those who like to R.P and will add some real substance to the ongoing in guild storylines out there. Great stuff.

Be well!

Been a while huh?

2011-07-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

So, yeah, been a while. Lot's been going on, but mainly a week off with the family taking it easy and enjoying the Summer here in southern Spain. Plenty of time in coffee shops, walking along the beach front and melting in the heat. Back to work now though and it's amazing how quickly you forget you were off. I've only been back three days and already my break seems as though it was an age ago. Of course one of the good things about having some time off work is the late gaming nights! I have had my fair share this last week and I'll share soon what's been going on.

Talking of late nights, it's midnight here and an early start tomorrow. Until then, it's about time I caught up on posting some screenies. Enjoy and see you very soon.

We'll start with Voltaans photoshoot for Men's Health

My Komodo gets friendly with an Iksar Statue

Voltaan's photoshoot for Urban Protection Monthly

Velious, first session. Great Divide

A big Tortoise with a village on it's back. Curious.

Velious flight

Eastern Wastes

Acolytes of Valor, Deathtoll

To An Ancient Time!

Back to Voltaan's Men's Health photoshoot

Be well.

Net Connection Update

2011-07-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

Technician came round this afternoon. Reckons he should have us up and running online by Friday. Not getting my hopes up, but it's more promising than it was. See you all soon.

Be well.

Classic Kunark

2011-07-05T06:25:00.000-07:00

So, it’s been pretty damn tough without the net at home. You really don’t realise how much you use it until it’s gone. Just the other day I was watching a movie and couldn’t place one of the support actor’s names that I had seen in a different movie the week before. Usually, it’s straight to http://www.imdb.com/ for some info, but not this time. I was shockingly left wondering! I have not missed the ‘phone that much, in fact not at all. But the ‘net? Wow, that one is stinging real bad.

So, what have I been doing? I’d be remiss if I said I had been working hard, filling the time with lot’s of chores. I haven’t done those things, well much anyway. Mega Summer has started here and already we are pushing crazy temperatures. So, what to do in this wonderful weather? Would you do chores? Well, you might if you were more diligent than I am. I have been spending much time with the little rug rats. Although I’m not so sure my nine year old would like being called a rug rat. I’ve also been spending some very important time nursing cold beers by the pool. Yes, it’s a tough life. Not sure how I cope with it to be honest.

It sounds like my Bro is having fun in EQ2 still testing the new mounts, although he does say that he’s not had the impetus to log in as much without ye’olde Voltaan. I must admit, it is my gaming sessions with my Bro that I am really missing. Was looking forward to getting in to some Rise of Kunark fun with him. That’s my fave expansion and have many happy memories of those questlines, both solo and grouped and of course the RoK raiding. So, in anticipation of our RoK sessions (fingers crossed on t’internets solutions), I thought I would highlight the things I find most desirable about the Kunark expansion.

I played Everquest and when I first visited Kunark in that game, I was in awe. From the crazy boat trip over there to the wonderful scenery on arrival. It was an epic expansion and held so much fun for many a year, even when it was superceded by new expansions. I have found RoK in EQ2 to be very similar indeed. I still head back there from time to time and always enjoy my stay.

When you start in Rise of Kunark, you catch the boat from Antonica or Commonlands docks and it gracefully bobs up and down until you reach Dreg’s Landing in Kylong Plains. Immediately you are greeted with a pretty vista and lots of little feathers floating above NPC heads. I love this part. It is the start of what I think was the best set of linear questlines for some time. They led you neatly through Kylong Plains from Dregs Landing to the snowy peaks of Teren’s Grasp, on to Brakthyr’s Post, Kunzars Edge and then Highton with the Bees. Some of the main locations in the zone are awe inspiring. From the sprawling mass of Karnor’s Castle to the spires of Teren’s Grasp, from the lofty heights of Varis to the deep canyons of The Gash of T’Thelin and from the Tunnels of Charnax to the devilishly evil and well populated Chardok. Kylong seems to have it all. The zones you move in to after Kylong (Fens of Nathsar, Kunzar’s Jungle and Jarsath Wastes) tell the same story. Excellent questlines leading you neatly through each and every area of the zone, guiding you through faction gain and very interesting zones and instances. Oh, and there is the great questline given by Anda too, starting with ‘Fistful of Metal’ and in to ‘A Few Coins More’ (Carries on in Fens of Nathsar with ‘An Ugly Bounty’). Anda is fun to reach too. I first saw him on my first trip back from Teren’s Grasp on the Sokokar, half way up a mountain with a little quest feather above his head. I couldn’t help but think that I must go and speak to the guy (is Anda a guy? I don’t recall) who hangs around on his own half way up a mountain, and I am glad I did. The questline is great fun.

So, on to instances, well, there are just so many that I think are quality. In fact pretty much all of them are. In this expansion, they seem to have go the mix just right. What’s more the instances have a nice amount of quests linked to them which means that the first few times you go in there, you are actually achieving stuff and not just going through the motions. This expansion was also (imho) the last one where truly fun shared dungeon zones could be found. Yes, later expansions had them, but I personally feel that RoK was the last time they were done well. Even the Hole doesn’t live up to Sebilis or Chardok. OK, so moving on. I’m going off memory here, but here are my fave instances to be found in the RoK expansion. I reckon the Crypt of Agony (CoA) is one of my faves. Sharing some of the layout of the Protector’s Realm raid zone with the entrance to be found in Sebilis, it really is a fun zone.

We also have the two Charisis’s, Vault of Eternal Sleep (VoES) and Maidens Chamber (both great dungeons with linked Legendary weapon quest), The Court of Korocust and Chelsith the gooey yucky zone inhabited by funny fishmen and horrid wurms and gooey floaty blobs.

Aside from the zones, of course this expansion saw the introduction of our Epic weapons. The level 80 quests to gain the weapons were huge and depending upon your class, pretty damn tough, especially not long after release. When you have finished the weapon questline you get the fabled version of the weapon,), then you could indulge in RoK raids to make your weapon a Mythical weapon. Nowadays, you can do the ‘Enervated’ quest line from the Sentinels Fate expansion to side step this part, but the weapon remains fabled (with the Myth stats) and the special class specific ability you get now comes as a spell not as an effect on the weapon (allowing you to upgrade the weapon but keep the buff). Personally, I like having the Mythical version before I trade it over to the newer enervated version because there is nothing quite like the server wide message stating that you are awesome (see below - note the different guild tag. Clan Werre was the raid group I was in during TSO expansion).

Adurj is awesome. Look, it says so on the screen...kinda.

I know it’s an old, used and rather baggy questline by now, but it still feels good to do it properly. Oh, one hinter before you start the Kunark expansion, research your Epic Weapon timeline as you will most likely need to watch your faction for when you come to do the quest. It's handy to know so you can start to build the required faction early as some of it is a right ole bugger to get.

On top of all this, the raiding in RoK is damn fun indeed. The first of what appeared to be the tiered raids, there was a nice linear progression and your Mythical questline led you nicely through the tiers also. The equipment was nicely balanced, so the further you progressed through the raid zones, the better the fabled equipment you gained. It was all nicely thought out and very interesting indeed, with some cracking scripts for fights, especially in the final raid zones in Veeshans Peak (I’m including Trakanon’s Lair in that).

To sum it up, the Rise of Kunark expansion is probably the most fun I have had for a sustained period in game, not just because of the great company I kept, but because of the amazing and varied content too. I love the expansion and am chomping at the bit to have another go at it with my Bro. Just need internets to start complying now.

Oh, you can check out my original thoughts (amongst others) under the 'kunark' tag on my old webby ' Revenants', here. You'll need to scroll down for my first impressions, or just click here and here.

Be well.

Questions at Fan Faire

2011-06-28T09:11:00.000-07:00

The goodly folks over at EQ2 Wire have had a wonderful idea and asked for visitors to post questions they wish the Devs to be asked at this years Fan Faire. The EQ2 Wire crew will select the best and deliver them to the Devs for answers at the Faire. Great stuff. Get your gripes and wonderments in now!

I did.

16.Comment by Voltaan — June 28, 2011 @ 10:59 am

Voltaan is tired! When will he be able to sit down in a chair or lay down on a bed?

All very important stuff, I'm sure you will agree. I was going to ask why the hell they are looking at re-itemising all items from 20-80th level as I see this as a complete waste of time. Having just run those levels at a not too fast rate, there really is no mega issue from my point of view. There are much more important things to look at like making the classes a bit more distinct again, especially with a 25th class on the way. But hey-ho. Thems how the dices roll. So, I decided to ask a question about a small inane subject that personally drives me mental! I'd like a music script like LoTRO too, but that's never going to happen.

Be well.

Net update

2011-06-24T08:59:00.000-07:00

It's official, our telephone line is completely shafted underneath the house. Telefonica sent out a techy and have told us they will not and cannot fix that and the supply of telephone service to that house is now impossible! Nevermind the fact that all the cables running under the houses each have their own little feeder tube and all they have to do is whip out the cable and feed another through. It's not as if it's a difficult job, they even have the piece of string there ready to tie to the cable to pull the new one through, but apparently, not their job.

So, that's it until either I move or can get that wireless I spoke about in the previous post up and running. Oh yeah, forgot to say. They tried to charge us €60 for coming out to tell us this. I won't repeat what Ema apparently told them. Anyhow, bloggy will be updated still from work at lunch times, but online gaming for the minute is down the pan.

Be well.

Mad Skillz

2011-06-24T06:58:00.000-07:00

It’s official, it’s been only a few days and I am missing EQ2 already. I have been able to use the time constructively though and I have got more jobs done round the house than the whole of last year I think. It’s amazing what MMO down time does for you. I’m up to date with my papers and correspondence, I’ve read two books, played a few offline games (Mass Effect, Neverwinter Nights, Left4Dead), written more of my novel and spent a huge amount of time with the kids. Well, the time with the kids hasn’t really changed as I don’t go online until they are both in bed. So far I’m coping OK though, even though I do miss seeing my mates and adventuring with my Bro. Now’s the time to catch up with all the solo stuff you have to do at level 70 level locking matey!

We may have some good news about internet though. Not with Telefonica, I’m kind of writing that off as a futile project at the moment. Not really, but we do have a friend who runs an I.T shop and he has just started providing wireless services up to 20meg. He is supposed to be coming round our house this weekend to see what the signal is like. Anyhow, depending on what Telefonica come back to us and say, then we may end up going with him for our connection. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

EQ2 news and it seems that Smokejumper has announced here that the devs at Sony are looking to re-itemise all items from level 20 to 80. I have no idea what this will bring aside from making old items fall in line with the ‘one stat per archetype’ thing. There are so so many items out there in the lower tiers that serve absolutely no purpose aside from an alternative ‘look’. I really don’t want to see the end of those items though. I hope they don’t just get rid of them. It’s worth noting here that following SoEs stat changes and combat changes that seem to occur pretty much every expansion, followed by the time it takes to put right all the mistakes they have made, it is usually time for the next expansion to come out by the time everything is fixed.

Seriously, can you recall a time when we had changes to stats or the combat system where after it was implemented everyone says, “Yeah, that worked well”? Of course you can’t. Every time they do it, they mess something up and remedial work to correct it seems to take forever. So, I ask the question of you, ‘Do you really think that SoE can change thousands of items over a MASSIVE level range, bigger than they have ever attempted before, and get it all right?’. I personally think the answer is no. The thing is, I know old content needs to be brought in line with new concerning stats changes etc, but it isn’t really as if they need to do that urgently. I have spent the last six months or so going through older content with Merecraft and it really isn’t that broke. It’s too easy if anything. The differences certainly did not affect or ruin the game play anyhow. So, why are they messing with it? I know it will need to be looked at eventually, but surely there are more things they could be getting on with. Like making it so my toon can sit down properly. After nearly seven years of either standing or lying down, his knees hurt and he wants to sit for goodness sake! Old poor Voltaan is not getting any younger and these things matter to him at his age. He also wants a fabled walking-frame (the fabled version does not have the speed reduction stat ;) ).

All joking aside, I’m a little concerned about them spending so much time on this when there are real issues with some of the other areas of the game. One of the main ones is that we have 24 classes that pretty much bleed in to one after all the stats and skill jiggery-pokery that the devs have done, with another class on the way, who may well either morph in to the rest of the grey mess of classes or may be outstanding and different, meaning that all will want to play. I just wish they would concentrate on something useful, like making sure all the classes are properly defined with skills that separate them and make them useful, at their trade. That was one of the drawing and influencing factors for me with EQ2, there were so many classes and they each had their own foibles and fun attached. Now there seems to be a real generic category that a class fits in with few defining parameters, Tank, DPS, Util, Heals. The original classes although some were a bit wishy washy with their skill sets originally, were well defined in the image of what that class was and had skills to back that up and stats that reflected their specialities. I just hope the new character class fits in with what we used to have and helps the devs with their defining of the existing classes. Whatever happens with this, at least new and old classes alike will have lovely new [but largely useless when compared to what else needs fixing] stats on their equipment to play with thanks to the level 20 – 80 revamp.

I have just realised that in the above I have just done a lot of moaning. More than usual. Must be my bad temper and withdrawal symptoms kicking in. On that note, I think it’s time to speak to a Telefonica representative again.

Be well.

The Frustration Continues..

2011-06-23T04:40:00.000-07:00

So, not only has our internet now given up the ghost after just a few hours of being fixed, but our telephone is now not picking up a dialing tone either. Looks like our wires are completely shafted and the technician apparently checked them all apart from the ones he could not reach under the house. Not sure if it's a fixable problem. Well, of course it's fixable, but whether Telefonica will bother is another matter. A friend of ours had similar trouble and in the end Telefonica said 'we will not be replacing any cables and apologise, but it is no longer viable to offer a telephone service at that address'. I would not be surprised by a similar answer.

All hope is not lost though as we are probably moving house in September to a much bigger place, a pool and...get ready for this..the owner works for an ISP and has plenty of solid connection at about 20meg. With Telefonica, we pay for 6 and get about 3-4meg...when it's working of course. All that's a few months down the line though and if we cannot get up and running at our current place it looks like we may be offline for quite a period of time. At least it's summer and there is plenty to do outdoors.

Be well.

"Keep me hangin' on the telephone"

2011-06-21T06:49:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what it is about Spain and its citizen’s endemic lethargy that means anything even slightly bureaucratic is turned in to a mammoth journey in to the unknown maze of Spanish administration. Let me explain. Currently we have no internet. None whatsoever, nada. It’s one of things you really don’t realise how dependant you are upon it until it is taken away. And that is how I am seeing it. It has been taken away from me by incompetent fools. Seems harsh? Read this first, then comment.

Of course when you have no net, the first thing you do is quickly check everything is OK your end and your cat hasn’t chewed through the cable. So you check. Nothing is out of the ordinary, no viruses, firewall working OK and not blocking, and so on. Of course the next step is to call your service provider to find out what is going on. Now in the UK, service generally from callcentre helplines etc is pretty good. Yes the systems that provide services such as these have a lot of problems and sometimes there are problems. Nothing like in Spain though, wow.

One thing I would like to point out is that it is thought by some that if you are in a foreign country you should speak their language. I agree. I have basic Spanish (as I work in Gibraltar all day long I speak mainly English) but my wifes Spanish is much better due to her being at home and having to do the day to day operations in Spain, and as such, has picked up the language well. My 9 year old is completely fluent. Even so, when calling to speak about technical stuff, it’s difficult even though we do make the effort to try and speak/learn Spanish. Because of this, we always opt to speak to the English speaking staff there for ease of resolving the problem.

So, here is how the conversation went when Ema rang them.

Dial 1004, Moviestar/Telefonica helpline for customers.

Ema: “Hola, habla usted Ingles?”

M/T: “No” – tone symbolising being transferred.

Ema: “Hello, do you speak English?”

M/T: “Yes. What is your name and phone number”

Ema: [provides details]

M/T: “What can we do for you?”

Ema: “This is about the third time I have rang. Our internet has been broken for over three days now”

M/T “I’ll transfer you to the technical department”

Ema: “Wait, they don’t speak Englsih. I’ve tried before”

M/T: “Oh. OK, but I can’t help with an internet issue”

Ema: “But cxan you talk to the technical department for me and explain our problem?”

M/T: “Sorry. No.”

Ema: “You can’t speak to them or won’t?”

M/T: “We’re not allowed”

Ema: “So your internal departments are not allowed to speak to each other?”

M/T “Yes, we are”

Ema; [exasperation] “Then can you please speak to them for me?”

M/T: “I can’t do that”

Ema: “What is your name?”

M/T: “Why?”

Ema: “Because I am the customer and I am asking”

M/T: “David Davies [made up name!]

Ema: “Can I speak to your supervisor please”

M/T: “No, sorry”

Ema: “Why?”

M/T: “He's not allowed to talk to customers”

Ema: “So the supervisor of the customer help centre is not allowed to speak to customers?”

M/T: “That’s right”

Ema: “So what’s their name then?”

M/T: “I can’t tell you that”

Ema [severe exasperation]”Erm, why can you not tell me?”

M/T: “You’ll have to ask him yourself”

Ema; “So I can speak to him then?” [are we getting somewhere here?]

M/T: “No, you can’t”

Ema; “Then how the hell can I ask his name? What’s his name?”

M/T: “I can’t tell you”

Ema: “This is a joke”

Voltaan in background overhearing conversation: “Babe? Are you sure that’s Telefonica? Are you sure you’ve not called The Secret Service?”.

Ema: “Nope, I rang the shite service”

M/T: hangs up.

So, that’s how our conversations have been going with our ISP. Fun huh? It’s now been five days and one of our fluent Spanish friends has been in touch with them and we are supposed to be having a technician round today. They’ll call us when they are on their way round. It’s nearly 4pm and no sign of them yet and they haven’t called either. Our frustration continues.

As a little light hearted fun, the Spanish themselves have made the below video about their bureaucracy. It's absolutely spot on. I think it's really great. At least the Spanish have a great sense of humour about themselves. Just as an fyi, I LOVE the Spanish, I LOVE living here, you just have to get used to some damn frustrating administration.

Be well.

A Bugged Life

2011-06-11T03:21:00.000-07:00

So, the last few days have seen Merecraft and I soldier on through the Swords of Destiny Timeline. We are actually getting somewhere. It’s really nice being able to duo zones, especially when they start to pose a challenge. Mistmoore Castle has certainly been providing us with that with Volt mentoring down. Taking just a party of two through there is only a challenge because there are just so many damn Vampires (it seems there’s so many they have bled over into naff teeny TV shows) and the Vamps respawn so quickly too. Add in to that most of the updates required us to dodge the Epic x2 Vikomt mob continuously and it really was a lot of fun.

I don’t think I have laughed so much playing EQ2 for along time like I did a couple of nights ago. Merecraft just couldn’t seem to stay alive. It really was down to many reasons, his amazing ability to stand near doorways, healing whilst I tank and of course aggroing all the mobs in the room too. Then there was the fact that I was sluggish too. Quite a few times Mere would shout over voice “Got mobs on me” and by the time my lazy clicks had got round to targeting and taunting, he was invariably dead.

It wasn’t all our fault though! Recently and I don’t know if anyone else has been experiencing this, there have been some pretty weird bugs in game. The thorn in our side last night was aggro. There was definitely something up with that. At one point Mere had a mob on him and this time I was quick enough to get in there. But could I get the mob off of Mere? Nope. That was really weird. Really really weird. You see, Volt has no trouble grabbing mobs of trigger happy end game dps’rs hacking out crazy damage and the reason for this is the many tools bruisers have for insta grabbing aggro. Used correctly they rarely fail, apart from last night. For some reason at times they just loved Merecraft. We checked buffs, he monitored where he was standing and at times there was no reason whatsoever that the mob would run to him unless the mobs are using the advanced AI and selecting to target the healer in the group I guess. Or, it may have just been a buggy night.

A few nights ago I experienced another weird bug. I was in Velious knocking out some of the solo quests, which is an achievement in itself seeing as I immensely dislike the expansion. Blame boredom for that one. Anyhow, thankfully for me very shortly after I had started questing there Merecraft logged in. I was by the Ring Public Quest event area. As I was porting to Merecraft to join him in Steamfont for a jaunt in to the Court of Innovation to grab an SoD update, a guy 'Greatslasher' was camping right next to me. Anyhow, as I arrived in Steamfont, I looked down and there was one of the cute little Winter Wolf doggy pets that follows you around. Cute as a button. It’s tag said its name ‘Ghost’ and below that he was 'Greatslasher's Companion'.

It was really strange. As I ran off to catch Mere up, the little doggy followed me, and kept following me for about thirty minutes, through zone ins and battles. I have no idea what sort of weird bug meant this little fellow was following me around and not its master. I did check to see if the guy had logged back in but he wasn’t around. Mebbe his doggy didn’t want to stop playing just yet and attached itself to me for more adventures. Anyhow, it is probably one of the weirdest bugs I have ever experienced in the game. Kinda fun though.


'Ghost', Greatslasher's Companion (AoV Guildhall Entrance)

Greatslasher's Companion, hitching a ride with Voltaan
(Steamfont Druid Ring)

I was playing EQ2 again last night as Ema helped her Dad at Kareoke, and the bugguyness seemed to have disappeared. We had a great night in Castle Mistmoore again, duo'd some epic x4's (which was fun!) as we had finished the last part of the Swords of Destiny earlier and were looking to try and duo the x4 contested Mayong Mistmoore! Sadly, he de-popped just as we got to outside his room in the Castle but at least we got the Legendary versions of our Soulfires. Plenty of time to go kill Mayong and grab the Fabled version. Also, later Mere got his Rain Caller from completing the Casualties of the Fay heritage quest. Grats!

On to a completely different note, it looks like EQ2 may be getting a new character class as Dave Georgeson, EQ2 Executive producer let slip recently whilst talking to Massively. So that will be 25 classes available. I'm not so sure about this myself. The classes as they stand are a little messed up still since they seem to buff/nerf them regulalrly and I can't help but try to imagine what gap they will fill. Of course the EQ2 forums are alive with the 'I DO so hope it's the Beastlord' crew. problem with this is that in EQ1, the Beastlord really unsettled the level playing field and even though i don't play EQ1 anymore, I do hear that the Beastlord is still unbalanced after all this time. I think if it is the Beastlord that we have coming our way that those expecting a carbon copy of the EQ1 Beastlord will be sorely dissapointed. The devs would be stupid to make them as OP'd as they initially were and to some extent still are in EQ1. personally, I think it may be the Beastlord that we have on our radars, but I honestly think it will be a huge jump away from what some may expect.

Another question this raises, is, will the class be the opposite of an already existing class? The reason this is poignant is that we could have level 90 'new class' toons running around within hours of it's release if betrayal and subsequent class change is allowed, as long as the class is an 'opposite' to another. That's a pretty steep learning curve by anyones book. I'm hoping the new class will only be available from level 1 and no betrayal will make it possible for you to get a level 90 straight away almost. I guess we'll just have to see.

In other EQ2 news, it looks like the dev crew are currently looking at mount development. If you check this you'll see that they are developing mounts that might not fly but kind of get you there slowly. This is how the layout is looking from that link. 1-29 : Walking and Ground mounts (horses, wargs, rhinos, etc.), 30-59 : Now also able to use Leapers!, 60-84 : Now also able to use Gliders!, 85+ : Able to use everything, including Fliers! Leapers are mounts that can leap great distances and change direction mid-leap, gliders can do the same, but at the apex of the leap they can extend wings then glide for a considerable distance. Check out the piccies borrowed from the above link to the EQ2 news pages.

Leaper!

Leaper & Glider (Wind Komodo)

But wait, theres more! For those of you who spend what seems like hours every time you create a new toon deliberating and agonisingly reviewing and discounting name after name for your toon, like me, then help is soon at hand. Finally, SmokeJumper is getting round to reviewing old used, but abandoned names. Don't worry you'll get plenty of chance and warning to log in with your toons that you haven't played for a while to make sure their names aren't stolen. I think this is great news. There are lots of cool names out there but they simply can't be used because they are there, unused on a level 4 Paladin sat in the Queens Colony for the last 5 years. Going to have to make sure I have some character slots free to reserve a couple of names, methinks. Good times.

Be well.

The Way that People Respond to Summer Madness

2011-06-09T02:59:00.000-07:00

Well summer is here (apart from the horrendous storms we had last week) and it’s time for me to start thinking what I will do with my evenings and weekends that doesn’t involve being a hermit and sitting in front of a monitor. Well, at least until it gets dark anyhow. So what to do? Typically when the summer hits my playing hours drop quite considerably. I’m not so sure that will happen this time round though, as already I have drastically reduced my hours online since Emarald stopped playing MMOs. I can forsee lazy evenings on the terrace writing my book, probably drinking a bit too much wine, BBQs and drinks with friends.

When I was thinking about this I started to think about how you actually notice when different seasons come around when playing an MMO. It is felt a lot more keenly if you normally have an active guild, especially if that is a raid guild with a set raid force. Every year during the summer months the Inquisition and the Fraternity both used to take summer raiding breaks as there simply wasn’t enough of our raid force present to do anything of note. Then as always there would be the normal attrition rate and some would not return meaning the raid force would have to go recruiting again and if it was a key class, usually wait before full on raiding started again.

It’s a reminder that the people we play with have lives outside of the game and that got me to thinking also. Unless you really know someone well online and discuss your real life with them, you are simply another, albeit probably friendly, toon in the game to them. Yes you may be a friend in game, but think about how many folks you play with, then have a think about how much you know about their lives in real life. It’s kinda weird now I think about it. Knowing so many people on terms that I would state as ‘knowing them well’ but then realising that really is only in game. There is so much more behind the facade with each and every person in an MMO and that is one of the things that makes them so great.

Of course, it’s also easy to forget as well as remember and we have evidence of this pretty much constantly in chat channel 1-9 and on websites such a EQ2 Flames. The ferocity with which some people attack each other in game is pretty primal at times. I think it’s probably part personality and part forgetting there is a real person on the receiving end and part bravery by protection of anonymity. Whichever it is, or even if it is an amalgamation of all of them, it’s still a ‘brain out’ moment.

I used to read EQ2 Flames. It started with using the website as a tool as the class discussion pages are simply awesome with the huge amount of help you get on how to play your toon well. But then it kind of bled in to checking out the other forums and of course the cruelly named ‘Rate a Retard’ forum. I’m actually quite surprised my abhorrence for such bullying didn’t kick in immediately and I initially enjoyed the tit for tat back and forth wrangling. Yes there were some posts that were always bang out of order and as the threads continued (in to hundreds of pages) the attacks seemed to get worse. Some of the posts are like a car crash. You really do not want to look but just can’t help it. I have banned myself from those forums now aside from the class specific ones as I no longer wish to witness such bashings and it really does serve no positive purpose.

It’s a real example though of over the internet how peoples true inner being comes in to play without the worry or social stigma of being an arsehole affecting them. About the only folks who get away with acting like that in real life are politicians, the rest of us try to be nice for the most part as we actually like having friends. I think online it’s also easier to coerce those who would perhaps normally sit on the fence to join in with such antics. It doesn’t seem such of a mountain of conscience to climb when the person you are about to bully isn’t standing in front of you.

I’ve seen it myself. One particular person, who I didn’t really have a soft spot for, left our guild after a long ongoing dispute about how we raid. Now although I didn’t like that particular person too much I didn’t take part in the months of bashing and nasty tells/discussions behind the scenes that took place after they left the guild then promptly started stealing some of the ‘on the fence’ members to join their new raid force, obviously depleting ours. Yes, there were some underhand actions on both sides and it really did go on for a long time. I couldn’t help but thinking as some of my guildies were waxing lyrical to me about how they ‘need’ to be punished for breaking up our guild, that I must have missed the meeting where two wrongs make a right. I just don’t allow that stuff to sit well with me. Just because someone else is being an idiot does not mean I or indeed others should allow their brains to dribble out their ears and become bereft of reason and compassion. Have at it, let them get on it with it, but for goodness sake, do not get involved in a negative manner. I know it’s only a game, but sometimes Homo Sapiens ability to be frickin’ evil disgusts me to the core. I’m no angel, do not think that I am, but I have my own morals and I stick to them and one of the biggest is to ‘only do to others as you would have done to yourself’. Bullying in an online game because it seems OK as you are not face to face with the person falls in this category. Of course it does.

So, where do we stand so far in the post? Well, we’ve had my summer plans, consideration of population in game during holiday seasons and a rant about how I dislike others who use MMOs and the Net in general to be a complete spanner. I think that just about covers my crazy rambling mind for today. Summer summer summer time, in the summer time....

Be well.

Slowly, slowly, catchy blog

2011-06-02T02:27:00.000-07:00

I'm slowly getting round to spending some more time back on my blog. It's taking some time to get on top of things at work though, so apologies for the slow rate the posts are coming at you.

This weekend was a nice easy one. It’s been extremely hot and sunny all through and it was nice to spend the first full weekend with such good weather. Friday saw my mother return home after a weeks visit. Always nice to see her, but as every with any visitor, it’s nice to get our house back. Friday evening was spent having lots of fun in EQ2 running Merecraft though The Estate of Unrest for the very first time (more on that later). Saturday and Sunday were lazy days full of cold beers, take away food, slurp TV, a few beers down the Chiringhito whilst helping the kids catch crabs in the rock pools at the beach and of course EQ2.

We also had friends over for a party on Saturday night which was a huge amount of fun. The evening saw lot’s relaxing and socialising. The kids were all gathered there too and they had a load of fun playing and adding some pretty heavy duty volume to the proceedings. The highlight of the night though was when my wifey began running through our garden sprinkler system with her mate at 2am getting soaking wet as they just HAD to see if they could still do cartwheels on the grass. Monday was another day off as it was a Public Holiday and sadly that day was filled with all the chores we missed from having such a relaxed and job free weekend. Oh well, it was definitely worth it. Great fun all round.

So gaming. EQ2. The longest session I had this weekend was on Friday night. Wifey had gone out drinking with her mates so I had a quiet house and no interruptions which was the perfect setup. When I logged in I hooked up with my Bro and we decided we would head to the Estate of Unrest. We are still gathering the statues for the Knights in the Round quest (part of the Swords of Destiny questline) and I know there is one in Unrest to gather and that my Bro had never completed the zone in EQ2 before. I was pretty tempted to not tell my Bro the secrets of the zone and to let him find out the clues and puzzles as we moved though. I quickly thought it through though, remembered that when we first did the zone from scratch without any spoilers it took eight hours and re-evaluated. I would walk him through it but get him to do all of the collecting and clicking so if he ever needs to go there again he’ll know the zone. As it happens we wouldn’t have had the time (obviously) to do that and after about 10 minutes we were joined by three other guildies, Egoacia, Lusarien and Prop, so that also put pay to that idea as I am sure they wouldn’t want to be dragged round at such a slow rate.

I love the Estate of Unrest zone. Along with Nektropos Castle it is one of my favourite ‘Castle’ zones. The story line is very cool too if you take the time to research it. It’s amazing how similar in layout it is to the old EQ zone. Obviously the EQ2 one is bigger and better looking, but essentially the developers have been faithful to the original design. It’s also one of the zones that has held some good luck for me. I met the guild leader of Inquisition, the raiding guild I was a part of for a few years on an Unrest run through. It was a last minute thing and they needed dps, so both me and wifey went along to join them. Me on my Assassin, Shahlai and my wifey was on her Necromancer, Kruelah. We obviously did OK because at the end of the zone we were asked to join their raid force by Beafcake and Littlebyte the guild leaders. A couple of years of happy end game raiding followed from that little encounter in there. I also met another guild I would become involved in during an Unrest run. This was The Fellowship of the Dragon, a roleplay guild who I ended up having a lot of interaction with following that run through. All in all, a great zone for me, Unrest.

Merecraft and I have been cracking on with the Knights in the Round statuette collections too. I’m pretty sure we can’t have too many to go now. I hope we finish the questline soon as I am looking forward to organising an MMiS raid so we can go kill Mayong for the final update. We also have the Claymore line to finish for him and I know he’s working hard on some HQs, one of which is casualties of the War of the Fae. I love that HQ. Great fun indeed, apart from getting molested in the Faydark zones by rabid werewolves all the time. The epic x2 end encounter was a lot of fun back in the day. Looking forward to helping Mere with that part.

Right-o, time for more work (does it ever end!!).

Be well.

Living the Hectic Life

2011-05-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

When I moved to Southern Spain, the idea was for a more relaxing lifestyle and a more family focussed standard of living. More time for the family, more time for hobbies. However, there is always a spanner in the works and nothing ever goes how you wish it to. The first big thing is money. My family still need money to live and as such I still have to work. That leads nicely in to the second issue and the fact I am kind of a victim of my own success and now hold a position where I have the money I need, but once again due to the demands of that position I am now once again lacking in time available to spend time with my family and follow my hobbies. Of course, family get first dibs, so ‘other’ stuff has to take a back seat. Hence the tardiness in keeping my blog up to date recently. Don’t get me wrong. I am eternally grateful and aware that I am lucky enough to have full employment during these tumultuous days, I certainly will not moan about that.

So, time has been spent away from the computer recently. The time I do have spare is easy to fill as summer is starting with longer nights and fantastic weather. BBQs have been rather prevalent these last few weeks and gatherings of friends in gardens with kids running round causing chaos, is how I have been spending my time. Oh, I nearly forgot, apart from a brief work trip overseas. I headed to Malta for five days recently with work for a conference and had some work to do at a new office we have opened up over there. It was my first visit to Malta and was a pretty cool trip. I was very busy with work, but did manage to go out and enjoy some of the nightlife and see a bit of Valletta and Sliema. It’s a wonderfully handsome place with history bleeding from every stone. Walking around Valletta is an experience in itself being an intact Baroque city. The architecture is stunning and the whole place has a medieval feel to it. It certainly was a busy trip, but a fun one too. I can certainly see why Malta has a fair few movies filmed there. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping to coincide my next visit whilst filming for series 2 of Game of Thrones is going on over there. One of the guys in our office is regularly an extra when Hollywood drops by and I made him promise that if I manage to get there when it is being filmed that he’ll hook me up with his agent. That would be awesome fun.

I have been spending a little bit of time on EQ2, but most certainly not the level of time I committed to the game before the ‘hack’ incident. I’ve pretty much only been popping on when my brother is about and we’ve been hitting the Kingdom of Sky questlines. We’re currently still battling through the Claymore line. I’d forgotten how long the quests can be and how much running about there is, especially in The Palace of the Awakened. It seems like we are up and down in there more than I remember. That’s not too big an issue though, especially when the zone is so much fun. One thing I have noticed though is that it seems very popular with power levellers and adventurers alike, even still. It kind of reminds me of Sanctum 2.0 in that respect. A couple of times we had to wait around for mobs to spawn as someone had been through and obliterated everything. It wasn’t an issue and not a moaning point as we had plenty of other stuff to do whilst waiting. I can’t really comment on that anyhow seeing as Volt usually does the same. Well, Merecraft will testify on my behalf here I’m sure. I do try and feign death mobs off if we don’t need them as I think it’s a bit cruel to just empty a place out, especially when you are sharing the zone with others.

Aside from the Claymore, we started last night on the arduous trek to find all of the little statues of Knights of the Knights in the Round quest (part of the Swords of Destiny timeline). For those who haven’t done the Swords of destiny questline it was released as part of a game update from what I recall and tracks your quest to get your hands on a rather tasty weapon (Well, back then they were). About half way through the questline you pick up the quest Knights in the Round and you have to head off all round Norrath to find these little statuettes of the Knights. It’s a little like that quest To Speak as a Dragon, where you have to go and collect 26 runes, except there is fifty statuettes to gather and they are not just in the old world, but spread all over the place and in some circumstances in places where you have to complete an instance first before you can get to them. It’s not difficult, just time consuming. Having said it’s not difficult, there were a couple of worrying moments as I ran around Qeynos getting those updates. Thankfully Mere did some scouting for me and I managed to avoid all but one of the epic guards and with the one that caught me I managed to Feign Death before he mushed me. We’ve gathered five or six so far, so not many to go. Gulp.

I still have my aversion to anything Velious (apart from my lovely flying mount) and haven’t been there in an age. I just have no enthusiasm to go there. If Mere ends up playing the game that long and goes, I will go with him as it will be fun learning with another person I’m sure, but solo? Nah, not my cup of tea at the moment.

Wifey and I borrowed a friend’s X-Box Kinect the other day and have been having some fun on that too. I especially like the adventures game (not sure of real title seeing as I just ripped it out of the box without really looking). I enjoy it a load, but man it does knacker you out some. I found sometimes it’s a bit noisy too, especially when I get to play is past kiddies bed time. Daddy jumping round like a hobbled elephant is not conducive to child sleep apparently. Oh well. It’s a great package, but to be honest even though we have the Kinect, I am spending most of my time on it playing the latest Burnout using the paddle. Not a bad console, but I do prefer the PS3 for racing games. Just seems slicker is all. I think the controller is easier to use also.

Right-o. Time for some more work. I hope to see you sooner rather than later.

Be well.

The Power Within comes Without

2011-05-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

This is the next installment in the adventures of Merecraft and Udrath. You can find the one prior to this, penned by my Brother here called 'Into the Noose'.

THE POWER FROM WITHIN, COMES WITHOUT

Udrath was skirting the edges of the dull box they were stuck in closely examining the luclinite stonework for flaws. His expert mining skills searching for tiniest imperfection or minute hairline crack. After all, he was a Dwarf and if there was one thing he knew well is was stone. In the centre of the ‘cell’ it took Merecraft a brief moment to regain his composure and as he did so he raised his eyes to stare in to the blank uncaring stare of his daughters gaze and he felt sorrow. With almost a whisper he spoke, “Why? Why would you do this Viota? I trusted you, Udrath trusted you”.

“That’s what made it so easy you fool. I’ve always thought that those who are generally of a good nature always err on the side of trust. It’s quite poetic really if you think about it father. The daughter you knew nothing about suddenly comes in to your extraordinary life and instead of joy, she brings pain and suffering. Much like you abandoned and ruined my mother’s life. Irony, it’s interesting. Perhaps your decisions in life are coming back to haunt you.”

“That’s not how it was Viota, and you know it.” Merecraft shot back, his mind a maelstrom of thoughts about his daughter, her mother and unsurprisingly of their current predicament. Turning away from the Lady Bovich he walked across to Udrath.

“Anything?” he asked of the Dwarf. Udrath stood, his knees creaking with age and turned to his oldest friend, his solemn look saying all that needed to be said. Merecraft placed his hand on Uddys shoulder and closed his eyes trying to force some semblance of calm. He would not be defeated by Dhrak. Not now, not after all this time, after all the borne hardships. Mostly though, he would not allow his closest friend to be drawn in to this fight and have such an ending. His thoughts turned to Udrath and almost immediately the illness that Udrath had that would soon see his end of days. Dammit he thought, if only he had not trusted the poisonous Viota. Now his friend would at least have a painless death and not the searing agony Udrath had been expecting. No! I will not let this be, his thoughts continued. Not like this. You got him in to this Merecraft Oakenheart. You’ll find a way out. He wasn’t sure who he was convincing, but there was nothing else to do. Merecraft moved to the corner of the cell and sat down his back against the wall. Closing his eyes, he let his mind wander free in search of an answer.

*****

Killzum Brakkarg, Warg Wrestler stood sentry. Not the sharpest tool in the box several hours had passed since he had seen the Dwarf, the skinny Human and the Magicker before he started to realise something was wrong. They had not yet come out of the mansion. They had said they would not be long. Several more minutes passed before Killzum came to the conclusion he should do something. But what? Looking at the ornate doorway in to the building and in absence of anything else to do or an imagination to come up with a different plan, Killzum moved to the door and raised his huge plate clad boot and in one motion obliterated the portal into kindling. Drawing his two long serrated hip knives in place of his usual weapon, the massive two handed broad sword strapped to his back he moved in to the dim foyer, stepping over the disintegrated door. All was silent within. Not that this mattered to Killzum. He was not a creature of stealth. In fact Killzum Brakkarg was quite the opposite.

Bellowing at the top of his voice, the walls shook with the thunderous sound as he called out his challenge cry. At first there was no response, then his eyes caught movement on the stairs in the room to his right. Striding directly through the rounded doorway to the room to investigate, Killzum was met by a quick moving shadow that dropped down on to him as he passed underneath the doorframe. Without breaking a stride he sheathed one of his blades and reached up over his shoulder with a gauntleted fist grabbing his assailant, a small war goblin who was promptly trying to poke a needle knife down the gap in his neck guard. Trying to disarm the slippery little creature would have been futile, so Killzum simply pulled the Goblin closer in to his armour and then with a sickening popping sound impaled the creatures face on one of his long shoulder spikes. Leaving the Goblins corpse to dangle, its life blood dribbling down his breastplate in a gruesome display of laziness, Killzum drew his sheathed blade again and continued to the shadowy stairwell. Meeting no further resistance he broached the top of the stairs and entered the room. It was empty. Shaking his head, Killzum moved on continuing his search. In a short time due to his lack of subtlety he had swiftly searched the whole mansion and disappointingly still only had one Goblin trophy to brag of. There was no sign of the comrades he had arrived with. Completely confused now, Killzum removed his helm and sat heavily on a bench in the reception hall trying to muster some sort of plan. Emitting a low grumble he began to rub his brow. This would not be easy and thinking usually made his head hurt and even worse his stomach grumble with a terrible hunger. This would not be easy at all.

*****

Udrath sat in silence absently toying with his axe, its butterfly shaped shining blades resting on the ground of the cell . Out of the corner his eye he could see Mere meditating, obviously off somewhere trying to find an answer to their current dilemma. Across the other side of the room sat Viota, looking almost smug but lost in deep thought. He knew the lass was wild sometimes, indeed crazy even, but never in a hundred years did he think she would stoop to the low levels she had. By Brell! What is the world coming too? he thought. Maybe she’s hurting too considering the mess her life has become. He was not concerned overly about his own plight. Udrath knew he was dying and nothing could be done about that. If he were here alone he would spend his remaining time draining the cask attached to his pack and slipping in to a peaceful sleep. But Merecraft was here and that lad needed him now, not his melancholy or his illness.

He tried to put his mind to the problem at hand. Udrath knew he wasn’t considered by many as a cerebral person but the fact of the matter was, when he wasn’t out crushing skulls he spent a good deal of his time nowadays scouring old tomes, indulging in many subjects that interested him. It was a way to fill the time and not think about Megan. As usual as soon as his thoughts touched upon her his chest constricted in emotional pain and he felt unbidden tears start to form in his eyes. Damn how I miss you Megan, he mused thumping the hard floor of the cell. If only you were here now, you always knew just the right piece of advice to give my sweet, you were my rock.... then it struck him like an Ogres backhand. A conversation many hundreds of years ago. The right advice. He cast his mind back, picturing it as if it were yesterday trying to recall each and every detail, making sure he got it right.

*****

Merecraft came out of his meditation, gently willing himself back to consciousness. Opening his eyes he saw Udrath sitting in a similar manner to himself, his eyes red and his head deeply bowed, eyes closed. Looking across to his daughter he cleared his throat and stood, approaching her.

“It really wasn’t like that you know. With your mother I mean. We were happy for a time, then...then life just happened. I planned nothing but love and care for her you know.” He paused swamping painful memories with his force of will and said in a quieter, almost whispering tone, “I need you to believe me Viota. I would never have hurt her intentionally. Nor would I hurt you, despite what you have done.”

“And what have I ‘done’ father? What exactly is it that I have done to you? Abandoned you with child? Never even checking to see if you were still alive or well or needed money? No. The things you have done to me and my mother are a constant pain and to see you righteously correcting the worlds wrongs with your stupid sidekick seems almost pathetic now. You needed teaching a lesson ‘Father’ and it’s rather delightful that your daughter is here to make you learn.”

“By killing me? By killing Uddy? What has he ever done to you? You like him, you know you do. And to throw away his life on a selfish revenge laden whim is nothing short of sick Viota and you know it. How do you plan on escaping yourself anyhow?”

“Well, that’s not something I had even considered. You have no idea the pain your emergence has caused me. The memories, the stabbing sharp painful memories it has raised from the dead. I just want them to end.” She finished and looked directly in to Merecrafts eyes this time with no blank uncaring stare but instead with a deep sadness there. “I am prepared for them to end.”

Merecraft was horrified. Not only was his brother in arms in a huge mess because of him, now his daughter wished to throw away her own life because of the unintentional pain he had caused her and her mother. This was a black day, a day to be forgotten. The sad thing was, it would be forgotten and forgotten soon if they could not work out a way to get themselves out of there.

At that moment Uddy burst upright from his sitting position and exclaimed loudly “I’ve got it Mere! I’ve bloody well got it lad!” Mere and Viota looked at the bouncing Dwarf like he was crazy sporting a huge grin just about visible beneath his huge beard that was swaying rhythmically.

Merecraft raised his eyebrows and looked quizzically at Uddy. “What exactly do you have my friend? You know how to get out of here?” he asked.

“I know how to get out of here. Yes!. But more laddy, a damn sight more. I know how to kill that damned Shadowknight!” he whooped and did a small jig grinning madly all the time.

Patiently Merecraft nodded his head then waited a few moments. “So? The answer is?” he offered to the still dancing Dwarf.

Uddy stopped his prancing and his face took on a more serious look. “OK, this is how it goes laddy.” Then he turned and looked at Viota. “Cast a spell lass” he ordered. Viota looked at him like he was insane. “I’ve already told you Udrath. Magic will not work here.” she stated.

“Aye lass, but humour an old man. Now if you please.” He said, indicating with his hand he was still expecting the spell he had asked for. Shaking her head Viota slowly went through a quick spell, she knew it would not work as soon as she started. As she said the words she felt no building of power, nothing. The spell failed. Udrath seemed delighted and smiling turned towards Merecraft. “Now you lad”. Merecraft inwardly sighed. There would be no telling the Dwarf, the easiest way to would be to show him magic would not work here. So, Merecraft chose a simple one and began his prayers. To his complete shock a loaf of bread appeared in his hands. “Wha...” he exclaimed. Viota looked completely in shock and Udrath had taken on a more serious demeanour. “Right, now use one to get us out of here lad.” Merecraft did not hesitate and summoning his prayers once more, they all disappeared to reappear in the foyer of the mansion once more and were greeted by a startling sight to behold.

Killzum was sat cross legged on the floor, surrounded by three pig carcasses and a cows head, his distended stomach straining against his tunic, his discarded breastplate laid off to the side and animal fat dribbling down his chin. As they appeared he looked up at them and watched them staring at him in disbelief. “Wut?” he responded to the stares. “Meez wuz dooun sumz finkinz!”.

*****

A short time later the four were sat in Irontoes in North Qeynos. Killzum was again testing his amazing stamina by devouring several mugs of broth and at least four tankards of ale. Viota was sat off to the side, quiet and in thought.

Merecraft looked across to Udrath who was nursing a firewater short, having hardly touched it. “I have to ask Uddy. How did you know?” The Dwarf raised his gaze to look at his most dear companion, his face full of sorrow. “Megan told me laddy.” He said simply. Merecraft did not point out the obvious but waited. He knew Udrath would tell him in his own time.

Minutes passed then Udrath drained his glass in one and wiping his beard looked again at Mere. “A long time ago my friend we had new recruits for me to train at Stormguard Hall. One of the lads, my, he was a feisty character, had strength and girth worthy of the finest Dwarvern Warrior. But skill, he had none. During standard drills he would drop his axe, trip his units left guard and be an all round burden on everyone else. But I knew there was more. If I could just get him to train! Well, I posed the question to Megan. She always knew what to do. Ye know what she told me? Aye, ye don’t of course, but I’ll tell ye laddy. She told me to take him under my wing. To give him special training, not just normal drills with all the other lads. When I asked her why, all she said was, ‘Some have power within and use that, others have power but must gain it from without. It is you where that must come from. You must teach him that power’ and that Mere is how I knew.”

Merecraft sat and thought for a moment, eventually his eyes widening and slamming his fist down on the table in delight. “Uddy, you’re a rare one! You knew that Viotas power being a Magicker came from within and was summoned, but mine comes from prayer, from the Blessed Tunare. A power from the outside. When I cast a spell, I don’t really cast a spell. I pray for Tunare to deliver the power for me. The spell came from Tunares magic, from outside the cage!” Shaking his head in disbelief and laughing, slowly his mirth faded and he placed his hand over Uddys, resting on the tavern table. Looking in to his friends eyes, Merecraft said softly “I miss her too my friend. There was never a finer woman”.

*****

Be well!

Spending most our lives livin' in a Hacker's Paradise

2011-05-05T07:45:00.000-07:00

I guess you already know that I haven’t been playing EQ2 recently. Or come to think of it, any SoE game. Playing my Playstation3 hasn’t been an issue as I have never hooked up to the net on it. So, what to think/say about the SoE/Sony hack fun recently? I’m not so sure I can say anything that hasn’t already been said, especially on sites like EQ2Flames where they have covered the sensible logical analytical approach to understanding the issue to plain old abuse of others whilst they try and understand the issue. I do know I am missing playing the game and that surprised me. Quite a bit actually. So, I got to thinking about why I miss it so much and it obviously isn’t my need to play in the Velious expansion as I dislike it and won’t be heading there again unless forced. Even if I wanted to, I am so far behind my guildies in respect of equipment/adornments/faction armour etc that the slog to catch up would be arduous indeed. I spoke to my nine year old daughter about this subject the other night when I found her crying in bed because she hasn’t been able to log in to Free Realms since the hack. She told me she missed seeing her friends and simply exploring. “No other game I like lets me wander round another world exploring”, oh, she also added “and Bin Weevils is rubbish”.

Part of it is obviously addiction. It’s what we are used to doing with our time and when that is taken away not through a choice of our own, it smarts a bit. You actually can physically miss and for want of a better word ‘ache’ for what you are missing. I haven’t quite got to that stage with EQ2, I simply miss playing, especially meetin up with my Bro. I haven’t been spending my time yearning to play and have found other stuff to do quite easily. It would just be nice to go smash a few mobs with Merecraft again.

So, anything else to say about the SoE thing? I guess one thing I would like to say is I’m getting a little fed up of the moaners. I am fed up of them moaning that SoE is crap, they should have done more, etc etc. Yeah, Sony dropped the ball. They should have had better protection in place. But, the real offenders? Those logging in and placing their personal details on a server thousands of miles away under trust. Trusting that they won’t accidentally send your info to a marketing company, trusting they won’t get hacked, trusting they don’t piss off the one client who has already developed a string of deadly computer viruses, trusting they treat their staff well so one particularly clever but pissed off employee does not ruin or steal everything. I guess the point I am trying to make is that when you put your data on the internet, wherever it may be, Ebay, Amazon, Easyjet, Financial Times registration, it really matters not. Anywhere you have placed your information on the net is a vulnerability.

Yes, Sony should have had better security in place, but even if they did, would this have stopped the attack? Maybe, maybe not. Our subs every month state on our behalf that we think Sony should at least tried and had those measures in place, but they did not. When you have folks who can hack in to the Pentagon (this place gets over 100 malicious attacks a day) or the Space Program of course there are going to be those with the know how to hack pretty much anywhere they choose. We really know too little about it to comment on that, but if someone wanted to do what has happened to Sony, I’m pretty sure they would have done so without too much trouble with or without the new security. We don’t even know why. If it was a simple crime, hacking for credit and personal info then it could have been anyone. If it was a revenge attack it’s likely to be an employee or customer of theirs. If it was a simple crime, maybe the enhanced security would have meant they moved on to our neighbours instead (just like the effect the alarm box has on your house), but if it was a planned, ordered or a revenge attack then nothing, not even new security would have helped. Revenge will have been obtained somehow no matter the security.

Whatever the reasons, whatever the ‘what ifs’, I personally believe this is unavoidable if you operate on the net. At some point your information IS going to get stolen. It may have already been stolen and just be sitting there unused. When the 7/7 attacks took place in the UK, MI5 raided all current suspects they were trailing. One property they searched had a filing cabinet in it with over 37,000 credit card details there including supporting documentation ready for use. The offenders had used just a couple of them to purchase camping equipment. The information had been gained from phishing. Look at the picture below.

This is just a random one I pulled off the net, but I have a hundred other examples much much worse than this one in my work folder. Some forums even have the cards, how long they have been stolen, the credit limits, types of card, advice on which cash points to use, batches of thousands of cards each split in to type, and so so much more. The point I am trying to make here is that your info’s on the net, get ready to cancel your cards at some point. It’s that simple. You should also stay on top of your credit rating. It is so easy to steal some ones identity then start to build up a wealth of debt with it and the actual person never even knows until they try to get a loan or mortgage.

Check out the below video from one of my heroes in my industry, native New Yorker Jeffrey Robinson. It really hammers the point home about how folks are willing to put information out there that they would not be happy to tell someone in the street. Interesting stuff.

Anyhow, what’s done is done and currently I’m hoping that EQ2 is not going to be offline for too long. I miss hanging with my Bro, flying my griffon, completing old questlines.

Be well.

Hats the way to do it

2011-04-28T03:50:00.000-07:00

Hooloh’s Hat quest, ‘The Blood of the Brood’ was the order of the night last night in EQ2 with my Bro. I love that quest. It’s always been one of my favourites. Having done it so many times on all the toons I have over 62nd level, in total I think about 13 or 14 over the years, I can recall every aspect of it.

Over the last couple of years there’s been a few changes to the quest that in my opinion make it a little easier, but perhaps not so much fun. I know it sounds silly, but one of the main things that I don’t like with the change is the fact Hooloh is now situated on the ground on Strifewind Isle, pretty much directly below the chain he once stood on. I loved the fact it was a right Royal pain to get to Hooloh every time you needed to speak to him. I have no idea why, but I kinda liked that. There are some things they haven’t changed that I appreciate and was surprised are still the same. For instance, the Scroll Bearer mob you have to kill is still a ^^^ encounter and still has a huge amount of hit points compared to like levelled cons. SoE seem to have dumbed down a lot of the earlier content and have changed a lot of mobs from ^^^ to a simple ^ or an even con.

We managed to get the update from The Nest of the Great Egg after leading Hooloh to the egg to commune with it, the weird owl. A quick run in to The Palace of the Awakened got Mere his Dreadknight blood update and then we headed over to the Halls of Fate in The Bonemire to try and get the hardest updates for the quest. This was another area they seemed not to have changed. The drop rate for the quest updates has always been a bit woolly with them being rare or uncommon drops and last night was no exception. As usual when running the quest most updates were obtained through a bit of tenacity and in some circumstances Mere was lucky with an update after the first couple of kills. The one that caused us issue last night was the Formless Abominations deep down in the Halls and with it being an instance and a ring encounter, I’m pretty sure they don’t re-spawn. So, when no updates were forthcoming Mere had to accept a return journey would be necessary at some point. We headed on to kill Sothis without any trouble at all and in fact he was dead before he even got a chance to summon his Skarize(?) Mummies to help him. We’ll head back at some point soon (after lockout expires) to get that one update that’s outstanding. Hopefully then Mere can go grab his lovely ring of flowers for his Warden as a reward.

On RIFT I have not progressed much further only having a few hours play time since we last spoke. I have got myself a mount now that increases my speed to 60% which is much better for getting around and I’m nearly level 14. Thanks to Kaelkardan (buddy and Guild Leader) who lent me the money for the horsey. I’ll pay you back soon. Promise. Honest. I have just reached the stage where you arrive at The Sanctum which is quite an impressive place to look at and there is plenty of back story to be found from talking to the locals.

One thing that is remaining constant with RIFT is my ability to totally forget how mashed up my toon got when he last tried to take on an invasion through a RIFT on his ownsome lonesome. I don’t know why I keep doing it. I know there is no one else around to help and I know that once all of the mobs become interested in me which invariably happens when you are alone, I will last about 10 seconds before impending doom. I honestly don’t know why I do it. I know what the result is going to be, yet I still shout my battle cry and just launch myself at them. Maybe I should have started a Warrior class instead of a Rogue. I have fun doing it anyway.

It’s interesting swapping from one MMO to another. Especially when like I have you do it in quick succession. For example, the night before last I logged in to play RIFT for 30 minutes, then hopped over to EQ2 to group and quest with me Bro, then when we logged from EQ2 I moved straight back to playing RIFT. I really notice the difference in graphics of course as RIFT seems a little more ‘fairy tale’ than EQ2. The toons are still realistic looking enough, it’s just something about the atmosphere they seem to create in RIFT, well the areas I have been so far in Silverwood anyhow. Aside from that though, the differences are surprisingly few. Yes, the mechanics side of things is slightly different, but the feeling and general game play is very similar indeed, obviously aside from RIFTs popping up everywhere. Perhaps more so in line with how EQ1 felt than EQ2, but it’s still very much in the same league. It goes to show you what I mean when I say the biggest thing I am struggling to get used to when I swap between the two games like that is the fact that in RIFT you have to right click everything.

I have a long weekend coming up and plan to make the most of it with RL fun and gaming too, but one must not forget the reason why I have an extra day off this weekend and that is the marriage of our Royal Prince William to his missus Kate Middleton tomorrow. I wish them the very best for the day and their future together. However, I absolutely and sincerely hope I am very wrong, but I do think the Royal Wedding will be a target of terrorism of some sort. I just hope my old colleagues are up to the job in trying to stop it. I am sure they will have done everything they possibly can to prevent such a problem but as we know in matters such as terrorism, the perp usually holds all the aces. Like I say, I really really do hope I am wrong but I just have this feeling that I am not. Let’s pray I am an idiot and have no idea what I am talking about.

I won’t be watching the wedding myself. I’m not a Royalist, even though I do respect the work they do and the culture and cash they bring to our great nation. I don’t see the point in watching the wedding when I shall likely see all the important bits repeated on the news ad infinitum over the coming weeks. I think I’ll take the kids down the beach for the day instead. Sun, sand, sea, lot’s of ice lollies, sand castles and maybe, just maybe a cold beer or two. Have a great weekend.

Be well.

Returning

2011-04-26T07:59:00.000-07:00

My fingers feel a little sluggish after such a long hiatus. I feel it’s going to take a few paragraphs to get back in to the flow. So, let’s get cracking!

Before I delve in to my EQ2 and other adventures, I think it’s time for a real life update. Work recently (and still is) has been a nightmare. At a time of year when I have many reports to complete that have to be submitted in time as stated in various bits of legislation, the folks I need to supply information for those reports all seem to have an incredibly laissez-faire attitude to it and don’t seem to realise that if you fail to submit these reports we break the law and all could go to jail. Add in an incredibly useless filing system that has already lost a couple of files that I desperately need to supply information on with the files still outstanding, my stress levels are pretty high. I guess having been the only one out of this bunch who has actually seen the inside of a jail cell (from the correct side you will note!), I have a reason to do my job properly. They quite obviously don’t give two hoots. Problem is, I would let them get on with it and just go to jail, but seeing as I am the one who has by law the responsibility to gather and submit this information, if I did that, I could end up going to court for their ‘couldn’t give a flying ****’ attitude and ultimately for their laziness, go to jail.

It’s so so weird. I get really mega stressed by all this ‘deadline’ office work. Like not being able to sleep, being quiet at home with the family, you know the many knock on effects of stress. But when I was in law enforcement nothing got me stressed. Nothing. Multiple car pile up, bodies everywhere, no stresses for me, get the job done. Extreme violence directed towards me, not an issue, tussle then get ‘em down the pokey, change your blood stained ripped shirt, back out on patrol, not a worry. When I was a marksman, that guys got a gun, mentally unstable? Any stress? Nope, just tactics and a job to be done. But office work? Wow, I have never felt so stressed in my life. I hate it. I guess in all those other circumstances I was in control and able to manage the incidents to successful resolution. In the office environment, I am reliant on so many other muppets who really do not understand the gravity of this stuff. I’m a bit of an perfectionist and I just cannot stand others who don’t seem to care about their liberty. Oh well.

I had a long conversation this morning with one of these ‘executive officers’ of our company who, used to living the finer lifestyle was telling me about how they spent several evenings dining out over the Easter holiday at ‘wonderful’ restaurants. I showed interest in their conversation to pass the time of day, but couldn’t resist a “That’s fantastic [insert name-yes I don’t wish to lose my job]. Glad you had a nice holiday weekend. Glad that you made the most of it because if you don’t get me that file I am after, your next holiday weekend will be fuelled by bread and water”. Perhaps a little snide, but the answer shocked me more “Oh, that. I’ll look at it next week”. The deadline is this week. He’s been told like 30 times. So, work stress and a large workload still exists with little chance of dissipating before deadlines hit. On a brighter real life note, this coming weekend sees the next MotoGP at Portugal. C’mon Rossi! (although I have a sneaking suspicion that Jorge will run away with it again).

OK, now the RL rant is over, on to much more fun stuff. This weekend and passing week has seen quite a bit happen for me gaming wise. I happened to log in to Steam the other day to activate a gift from my Bro of Portal [Thanks Bro!] and my buddy Konador shot me a message. It was great to chat to him. He’s one of my very best RL mates and I hadn’t spoken to him since Christmas. After waxing lyrical about the benefits of Test Drive 2 over its first incarnation, we got to talking about the rest of the gang. It turns out they have all been playing RIFT. I had no idea. Ema still had a RIFT account live after she dabbled following her leaving EQ2. She doesn’t use the account anymore so I thought I would give it a go. Regulars here will know that I Beta tested the game and ‘kinda’ liked it, but didn’t love it, so I thought it would be interesting to hook up with the old crew and to see what it is like post release.

To be honest the game hasn’t changed that much at all from Beta as Beta was very polished indeed. But as it stands I have created a Rogue based toon on the Tehkhat server [think that’s spelled correctly] and he currently sits at level 13. I’m planning on eventually turning him to a Marksman. I’m quite enjoying it, but I’m not sure if that’s the fact I am amongst old friends or if the game is OK. I certainly know that I died a lot and the game can be quite challenging at times for a noob, which is actually fun. Because it’s an all new world to me I have a feeling this is where the excitement lies. The gameplay is quite like EQ1 but a lot less waiting around. I guess if you broke it down there wouldn’t be too many similarities, but it just ‘feels’ like that kind of game. I’m not so sure what will happen later on when I’m more used to the game. I have a sneaky suspicion that I’ll get bored quickly. That probably won’t happen too soon though as RIFT is most definitely my ‘secondary’ game at the moment with me spending time in EQ2 with my Bro, as he mentioned here in his latest blog post. I have no intention of making RIFT another MMO that I dedicate my life to. It’s going to be a ‘dabbler’. Summer is coming and that means long very hot evenings by the pool and BBQ with friends and family, which of course means less face to monitor time. All of that means RIFT will remain a small part of my gaming life and I suspect, more of a way to keep in touch with my ole RL buds back in the UK. I guess my gaming hours on the game to date only add up to about 4 or 5.

EQ2. I must say I have been having a bit of a hiatus from this too. I really am only interested nowadays in loggin’ on to complete the older content with me Bro, or alternatively completing long lost smelly old quest lines from my journal. The new expansion holds nothing for me now. I am not interested in doing the instances, gathering the shards, getting the armour and kit. Nope, does not interest me one bit for some reason this expansion. I guess I should call it my nostalgic game now. Only older tiers for me at the moment.

So, what have we been doing? The last week or so we haven’t been playing too much as my Bro has been playing Portal 2. A right rip-snorter of a game I’m told. But what time we have had has been primarily been spent on the Claymore questline, with my Bro now level locked at 70. We have also been dabbling in the strat of the Swords of Destiny line [SoD], which is great because me and another friend Drow have already started that but I had hit a bit of a brick wall when it came to gathering all the little statues. Hopefully we’ll get to that point soon then Drow and I can resume from where we left off too.

I never actually realised how much content there was around level 70 that ‘needs’ to be completed if you want to truly make sure the main questlines are complete. There’s loads. From Hoolohs to SoD, from Claymore to The Tower of Four Winds, it’s all great fun in that tier. Mere and I haven’t even touched upon the Mark of the Awakened questline in Bonemire yet. Thinking of the Claymore quests it’s amazing how little I recall, but also how I have remembered some of the finer details. When we were in Sanctum, there is a part where you have to go round collecting staves from pretty much each room. I didn’t recall that part of the quest at all when I re-did it. Even to the point that earlier I had asked Mere if he knew what the staves in each room were for. Weird how some things stick in your mind and others dribble out your ears.

All in all I am really enjoying running through it all again and especially mentoring down to 70 meaning that the ‘quick run back to the bottom of Sanctum for a quick update’ really is that and not an hours long slog just to get there as it was in the old days. I recall that part of the Claymore questline. The slog in just getting from one update to the next in dungeons that are large and take a long time to get to the end (when you were level appropriate with kit that wasn’t several tiers above!) was a big part of this questline. I remember sometimes just getting one quest update a night. That’s not completing the quest, just one step of the quest. Wow, the Claymore line took AGES.

With all the business with the major questlines we have yet to complete, I think I may need to break the news to my Bro gently that there is the whole Loping Plains Freethinkers stuff too to do that we are missing at the moment, and on top of all that the level specific armour that is to be gained from the instances (Obelisk of Blight, Valdoonicans, Unrest, Mistmoore Catacombs etc). There is surely a whole lot to do.

Oh, before I go..I’m loving Game of Thrones!

Be well.

Update: There's a reason for lack of posts!

2011-04-18T07:36:00.000-07:00

Apologies all. I am in the busiest few months of my yearly work cycle and on top of that have been very ill and missing work for the last week. So I have a HUGE amount to catch up on. I'll be returning to post as soon as I can, but work and home life catch up comes first!!

I'll be back as soon as I can get back on top of things. Miss you guys.

Be well.

Curriculum Vitae: Gaming

2011-04-08T06:57:00.000-07:00

With me just pretty much killing time on EQ2 in that I no longer have a desire to progress, just to hang with my Bro and my guildies, I have decided to take a look at my gaming history, the time I like to spend gaming and the games I have enjoyed indulging in past and present.

When I very first started gaming my interests lay in ‘the game of the moment’. There simply wasn’t enough choice back then to become involved in a huge amount of variation. Of course, I spent a huge amount of time playing ZXSpectrum games, of which Gargoyle Games, Tir Na Nog and BugBytes/Software Projects Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy were my absolute faves. Man, remember those cassettes that the games were stored on? Oh, yeah, I also spent a load of time on Skool Daze, Back 2 Skool and Monty Mole games. Auf Wiedersehen, Monty! was my fave. Damn I loved the ZXSpectrum. I moved on to a mega drive at some point and Sonic the Hedgehog was my choice of game for the most part and also spent a huge amount of time on my first proper gaming RPG, Shining in the Darkness (if I had owned a snes I am sure it would have been Mario instead). Anyhow, you can play all your old ZX Spectrum games here for free online.

As my brother became more and more involved with PC ownership and I was (as most younger brothers are) a parasite to his time and pretty much hung around whilst he played on his antique PC, the next interest I had was perfect for a young adolescent looking for gaming and horniness. Yes, the original Tomb Raider game was a revelation to me. I thought it was so realistic and the way you could move Lara Croft was unprecedented in game play for me. That and you could adjust the camera angle to get a great look at her polygonal arse. I was 12 or 13 FFS, don’t be so judgemental! Hehe.

Of course, the very next ‘hook’ for me in PC gaming was Doom. By this time PCs were a little more easily available and most of my friends had one. Of course I did not and still had to pester my Bro when I wanted to play. But, Doom was the flavour of the moment and it was played to death by all gamers I know. We all loved it. Doom 2 was again a revelation and in particular this time round we all got hooked on a particular aspect of this which was the LAN game play. We had never really experienced LAN before, my Bro had been to a few LAN parties, but I hadn’t and playing Doom 2 on LAN was simply gaming bliss back then. Yeah, we also dabbled in some mods for Doom.

After the Doom franchise got a little boring, thankfully we were then treated to the amazing world of Quake and in my case more importantly when Quake II came on the scene, an amazing mod, Action Quake. This mod of the game became the mainstay of our online game play for quite some time. My Bro started a ‘clan’ for Action Quake called Funk Soul Brothers and we gathered our team from our mates who we already played the game with on LAN. There was my Bro, Daddy Cool, Me as Fat Toni, My buddies were Superfly, Errol Brown, and Huggy Bear initially. We had some late comers to the clan, but essentially those were the founding members. Before we knew it we had been entered in to a European league for the game and twice weekly we bashed it out with other teams in a bid to become AQ top dogs. We didn’t do too badly really. We got to the top of the second division at the end of the first season. Then were promoted to the first for the second season we completed.

The second time round we didn’t do so well in the first division. The quality of opponent was much higher and we stayed right at the bottom of the league I think. By the time we had all got bored with Action Quake I had bought myself a PS2 and the order of the day is now one of my most loved gaming genres, which is racing games. I started with Colin McRae rallying and never really left that game and it’s successors until I stopped using the PS2 console. The original Gran Tourismo is one game that holds a huge amount of nostalgia for me. I recall living in my first house that I owned, with my two lodgers who just happened to be my best buds (Superfly and Errol Brown as mentioned above) and spending huge huge amounts of time progressing through those racing games together, taking it in turns to race. From what I recall standards usually dropped in the late evening as the alcohol used to set in!

Eventually Action Quake fell by the way side and for me, the next few years were spent indulging in various Grand Theft Auto games on the PS2. GTA is one of my very favourite franchises and I genuinely get excited when I know a new edition is to be released. GTA V is one of my most anticipated titles. I have spent hours on those games. From hard core play to simply popping on the game to beat up a few prostitutes and steal their money. What? That’s a perfectly acceptable past-time! Yup I have spent so very long on that series of games, I can still picture every job, mission, location, event. I guess I like being a criminal if it means I only hurt pixels.

I also carried on my love for driving games and those (aside from GTA titles) pretty much became the only things I used my console for. Need For Speed, Burnout, CMcRaeRally, Gran Turismo, Carmageddon and many many more. That genre has always stuck with me since I discovered it. I'm not sure but my love for driving fast cars at ridiculous speeds without the worry of total death is probably to blame.

The next game I became immersed in was Everquest on my brother’s recommendation. It was my first brush with an MMO and to be honest when I started playing, I didn’t really understand what that meant. I’ve been trying to recall my very first experience of the game. I can’t even recall where I purchased it from. I do know that without my Bro having started a week or so before me, I would have been totally lost. It was hard enough to get to grips with all of the mechanics and actions with some help, so those pioneers like my Bro must have had a real arduous time learning everything about the game. One thing I did learn though was it’s easy to run up a massive telephone bill when you play an MMO on the old pay per minute setup. Think about it. We all use the internet mostly on broadband nowadays, and that monthly cost gets us access to the internet whenever we choose. So we have say a £20 charge per month for full access to the web, then pay about £10 for our monthly subs on our MMO of choice. Back then, EQ was costing me my subs of about £10 per month plus my £300 phone bill, £50 of which was probably normal use. So my love for EQ had me paying in total, about £260 a month. I have never thought about it like that before. That’s almost more expensive than Golf for a hobby!

I guess it was worth it though. I adored EQ. It was a frustrating game all told with lots of restrictions to my generation’s attitude of ‘I want it and I want it now’. I had to change my philosophy to ‘I want it now but am willing to camp this mobs spawn spot for three days only to have it stolen from me whilst I’m making a cup of tea’. It taught me a bit of patience and extra frustration all in one. But the thing that really hit home about this game and genre? I could all of a sudden BE the Dwarven Warrior I had played in tabletop D&D for an eternity. I could play his life and become so immersed it almost was like a second life (would be a great name for an MMO). EQ was hard. It was a time sink at a time when internet connection cost a lot, when I was very busy with a developing career path and needed time to study for my vocational exams. But did this stop me from playing? NO, of course not. Because Udrath Stormheart the Dwarf from Kaladim did not have to worry about those other wordly things. It was the great escape (would be a good name for a movie). It was the way I vented from having to deal with all those pressures of real life. EQ brought a huge amount to my gaming and real life, some negative, mostly good I would say.

Everquest 2 followed on from EQ, but not without a three year break between the two from playing any MMO or indeed any computer games at all really. At that point I did focus on my RL and am still feeling the benefits of that hard work today, so it was well worth it. But EQ2 was the perfect swansong for me after a few years of intense career focus. The perfect way to unwind and enjoy some ‘play’ time once again. I have yet to ask myself if I still get so much out of it. I do know I feel I miss my friends online if I don’t log in for a few days so at least I know I am getting some decent interaction with my friends and indeed my brother because of it. As for the content? Well, suffice to say I am enjoying spending time with my brother back in tier 7 much more than I am exploring Velious.

So, there it is. My gaming life pretty much in full. Right. I’m off to play Elite on the Spectrum emulator.

Be well.

A Day at the Races - Photos

2011-04-05T03:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some piccies of the action this Sunday in Jerez. Thanks to Motogp.com.

Simoncelli (Ita) begins his flight

Simoncelli left to sort himself out by marshalls

Rossi (Ita) loses front and scoops up Stoner (Aus)

Stoner congratulates Rossi for his move
(Rossi managed to get started again..Stoner did not)

First Corner, Circuito Velocidad de Jerez

John 'Hopper' Hopkins (U.S) on the blue Rizla Suzuki had a
strong showing after two years away from the series

Valentino Rossi

Third spot on the podium went to Nicky Hayden (U.S) on his Ducati

Second spot on the podium went to local boy Dani Pedrosa (Esp)

Race Winner, current World Champion, #1, Jorge Lorenzo

Be well.

A Day at the Races

2011-04-04T08:34:00.001-07:00

Yesterday saw a day out at the races for me. Not to watch the gee-gees, the mounts I saw being raced had a lot more horsepower. Yes, along with a few mates, we all set off nice and early (wow, Sundays at 0800 is so quiet on the roads here) and rode on our bikes from the Costa, up the Autovia de Jerez a Algeciras (A381) to Circuito Velocidad de Jerez to watch the Spanish MotoGP. What a day!

The weather wasn’t too bad to start and in dull sunshine we set off on nearly empty roads. I had never ridden the A381 and it is a fantastic road. Through beautiful scenery, mountains, lakes, bridges. Lovely. About half way there we stopped at the service area at the Alcala de los Gazules exit and whilst we were standing around our bikes having a coffee and a chat it started to spit with rain. That set the tone for the day and from then on it pretty much got worse and worse, turning a nice ride through stunning Spanish scenery to a ride through grey mist and intermittent heavy rain. It didn’t dampen our spirits though and we pushed on until we arrived at the circuit. It’s not too far at all from where I live, probably took about two hours including the fuel/coffee stop.

The motorbike park at Jerez circuit is huge. There must have been about 50,000 bikes there. I took special note of the surrounding area to make sure I would find my way back to my bike when we were heading home later and then it was down to the track. We headed initially to the collection point as our tickets were supposed to be waiting for us. After a short panic where they couldn’t find them, all was OK as they looked in the first envelope they had previously checked and is by magic they had appeared. After trolling the stalls for about an hour and a stopping to eat a burger we headed in to the circuit to get settled for the first race. Yes I know it was a bit early for a burger, but hey I was hardly likely to find somewhere at a race track that would sell granola and yoghurt for breakfast now was I?

The weather was pretty changeable all day, from high winds to heavy rain, to drizzle, to grey skies but dry. That made the racing extremely exciting as the track surface was very changeable and not predictable in anyway. So many riders were caught out this weekend and binned their rides into the gravel. Three crashes at the end of the first straightaway (where I was sitting) were particularly memorable. First in the Moto2 race, Spains hero Marc Marquez was smashed in to from behind by Jules Cluzel and both crashed out unable to retrieve their bikes. The atmosphere in the stands took a turn for the worse as the Spanish adore motorcycle racing and their ‘Moto heroes’ are almost Godly in status here. There was much grumbling and shouting at Jules Cluzel, who to be fair made a mistake and was gracious to Marquez in apologising. Marquez dealt with the situation in a very grown up manner for an 18 year old.

The second crash of note that occurred right in front of me was when the race leader of the MotoGP race went down, annoyingly with no one behind or pushing him and with a 4 second lead. Yup, Marco Simoncelli, the Italian with the crazy hair was having a barnstormer of a race when he binned it in the unpredictable conditions. The bad thing about this? Well for Simoncelli it was the way the race marshalls dealt with his situation. Not only did they only give a half-hearted attempt at helping him, but they nearly pushed him in to a line of still racing motorcycles, then abandoned him to try and push start his bike..uphill. When he finally got their attention they went to help him out and nearly dropped his bike.

The third and most controversial crash of the day was when Rossi went for a very ambitious move up the inside of Stoner and lost the front end, crashing and sadly taking Casey Stoners bike out from underneath him (again happened right in front of me..in fact if you pause the action on TV you can see me holding my head in my hands in disbelief in the crowd). In the end it was a racing incident and these things happen. A big shame though and to be honest the media circus after this incident was way over the top. Again for this incident the marshalls actions were questionable when they pretty much ignored Casey in favour of helping Rossi when they were both on the floor.

Anyhow, all in all a fantastic day, even the ride home in the wet did not dampen the mood. Oh, and in case you were wondering, my super navigation skills found me my bike straight away.

Be well.

Afraid 2 play? Posh ploy?

2011-04-01T04:08:00.000-07:00

OK, so last night I log in to EQ2 and things are pretty normal for the first 30 minutes or so. I knock out a quick Public Quest almost as soon as I log in but gained nothing new from the dropped treasure hoard. I spent a little bit of time doing an old HQ for the AA (Trail to the Past). Normal run of the mill stuff. I was chatting to my guild about inane stuff when I got a tell from a toon I have never spoken to or seen before, Lode. I don’t have the text log until I get home later, but the conversation went something like this:

Lode: Hello, how have you been?

Voltaan: Hi, sorry, do I know you?

Lode: of course! It’s me.

Voltaan: LoL, OK, who is ‘me’?

Lode: you’re kidding right?

Voltaan: LMAO! No! I’m not kidding, I have never spoken to you before. Like ever..

Now, this is where things start to get a little bit freaky...

Lode: yes, you have. Although the last time we spoke was in person.

WTF? Who was this?

Voltaan: I’m sorry, even that isn’t helping. So who are you in RL life then?

Lode: Come on! Surely you remember?

I was starting to get a little irate now, and a quick search of EQ2 players didn’t help as the damn error messages kept coming up.

Voltaan: I don’t remember. I don’t know who you are and unless you stop farting around I’m just gonna put you on ignore ...

Lode: LoL, that won’t help you

‘That won’t help me’? What the hell was going on!! I must say I was rather angry, confused and wondering if I was having a trick played on me.

Lode: So, you don’t remember me?

Voltaan: NO! Who the F*** are you?

Lode: You don’t remember me? Really? I was there after you crashed your motorbike.

Now this was WAY outta left field. The only person who I know who was with me when that happened was my best mate who still lives back in England. He did used to play the game but quit pretty soon after RoK was released and he gave me his account. I had changed the password at some point over the last couple of years and there was no way he could have known it. So, I got my thinking cap on. Pretty much all of my mates know I had a bike crash in Wales and wrote off my Moto. So it could be any one of them, but the only one who still has an account live is my real life brother and I know he wouldn’t mess like this. Then I got to thinking, I guess it doesn’t matter if they had an account or indeed if they did if it was live or not, as the free 14 day trial could have been activated and it could be any one of my friends back in the UK playing with me.

Voltaan: Rich? That you ?

Lode: Nope :)

Voltaan: Who then? Davey? Jimbo? Chris?

Lode: OMG, you still don’t get it do you? Think back to your accident...

Voltaan: What the hell. You’re frickin’ annoying me now bud. I don’t recall much from that day. If you were there you will remember I was unconscious for a time then very disorientated.

Lode: Yes, I know. In the ambulance. Do you remember?

Holy fukkin’ crap, I was starting get a little uneasy now. ‘In the ambulance’!! I was open mouthed and wondering where the hell all this had come from. I was thinking ten to the dozen and of course remembering being in the ambulance. Had I spoken to the paramedics much when I was off my face on morphine? I did a /who lode all, and saw he was not anon and was tagged as being a 38 brigand in The Enchanted Lands. I started to head there to see this crazy dude face to face. Lo and behold, there he was standing on the dock near the hut there. I didn’t recognise anything at all about the toon. Not the looks, name (full name was Lode Yofou), nothing, but that meant nothing really. It only takes a very short time to level a toon to 38, so I guess I couldn’t take much from that.

Lode: I see you!

Voltaan: Yes, I came to see what the hell is going on

Lode: You know what is going on. You just don’t know you know

If the dude was in front of me in RL, I would have punched him by now.

Voltaan: Enough with the riddles...is that you Matt? (I thought of another friend it could be)

Lode: Like I said, think back to being in the ambulance.

Voltaan: You one of the paramedics that treated me? I don’t really remember much about that journey to hospital.

Now even if this was one of the paramedics, how the hell did he know Voltaan was me? Did I have a freaky stalker?

Lode: No, I’m not a paramedic.

Voltaan: You know, you could have finished that sentence off, like ‘but I’m....’

Lode: I cannot tell you, you must pass this test alone

Motherf***er! WTH!!! Test? Man, /ignore was looming and I was thinking of /report too.

Voltaan: Look, I’m not gonna take your ‘test’ I have no idea what you are talking about and you are starting to piss me off

Lode: Think back to the ambulance. You were lying down, and there was no pain. You had lots of morphine in you. You were staring at the ceiling watching the fan go round and round (I have only told this to my mates. It has to be them). And you were feeling light headed. Then you saw it. You saw me.

Voltaan: All I saw was a ceiling fan and paramedics pal. Look, this is getting very close to being a criminal offence here which happens to be right up my street and well into my forte. If this is a joke you need to be careful. You’re stepping well over the line.

Lode: I’m not talking to you to annoy you or to make you scared (SCARED!! Grrr)

Voltaan: So why the hell are you talking to me then?

Lode: To see if you are ready. You refused my hand that day and went back to your life but time is drawing near and I need to know that you are ready. From our conversation I can see that you are not. Bye! See you soon!

And that was it! He logged out. Didn’t camp properly, just disappeared. Luckily I had hit /report just after I had told him he was stepping over the line. I don’t know if anything will ever come of it as a previous /report I did about 6 months ago went by not being dealt with by SoE at all, so I don’t know what will happen. I do know it was hands down the freakiest conversation I have ever had in game though.

I’ll keep you updated what the GMs say.

Be well.

Out with the old..

2011-03-28T03:31:00.000-07:00

This weekend saw little play online. What I did do though was pretty productive. I managed to get my chest piece from Velious public quests and am now pretty much setup so I can start to run instances in the new expansion. When I can gather the motivation that is. At the moment I am pretty apathetic about it. I completed the final ‘portal to the past’ on Voltaan as the fabled waist item that drops is awesome. The fighter one dropped but Sjlverwolf won it this time. No worries there, nice to see guildies getting kitted and I’m sure it will drop again for me at some point. One thing though, I’m not sure how long these events will go on for, so I may be running out of time to get the item. Guess we’ll just have to see.

With the Everquest franchise being 12 years old now and with some stimulation to reminisce from my Brother who posted a great run down of his fave 12 memories from EQ, I have decided to resurrect the old/new comparison posts I used to run about EQ/EQ2 zones. I’m going to start off with a post I made originally for my old blog for a couple of reasons. One, because it sets the mood all nice so you folks know what to expect when I do a post like these and because I’m lazy and it’s lunch hour at work so time is of the essence.

Feerrott (Originally posted here, on my old blog - Nov 8th 2007

Feerrott - Old and New

The Feerrott. Even the name creates an aura of dark mystery. Without even visiting the place you have an image of a stinky jungle/swamp. Not surprising really when most of us read the title as Fear- Rott.

It’s time for the zone review again. Over at SoE they have invited the community to once again give their guides and comments on the selected area. As usual, I am going to travel back in time (you told me you had lost that ability! – Ed) and give my impressions, memories of the old EQ original zone and compare it to the new.

The Feerrott was one of those zones that I rarely visited simply for its own content. It was a corridor to get to Cazic Thule and Rathe…a place to dodge bouncers. I guess I did spend a bit of time there hitting the temples (huts) around the Cazic entrance trying to get the Ravenscale Armour that used to drop of the mobs there as a rare. Lizardscale was the common drop. That was probably the most time spent in the zone to be honest, and that was to help a friend out. So what do I remember about the zone?

After being spoilt with nice open zones like the Commons, the Deserts, Mountains etc etc…I must say I was pretty scared every time I was required to run across The Feerrott, because of the enclosed dark and dingy feel. I really did feel (originally) that I was running round a jungle and yes until I hit the river I was usually hopelessly lost. I would even go as far as to say before I got my navigation down, I felt pretty claustrophobic in this zone as a noob. Kinda the same feeling I got when negotiating Kithicor. That was one reason why I felt a little apprehensive whilst running around The Feerrott but mainly it was because of the Bouncers. Until I had met them, I don’t think I had met a meaner, faster, tougher mob and the worst of them all was indeed Bouncer Hurd (as suggested in EQAtlas). I have to say it really was a pleasure to give him a right bashing in EQ2’s Feerrott whilst doing the Stein of Moggok HQ. Revenge did indeed taste sweet.

So yet again another zone that really was pretty much a by word for ‘I’m omw’. Another zone I spent most time in when I was travelling to somewhere else. That has happened a fair bit now, with the zones SoE want reviewed. When I think back at the ‘old’ zone, it didn’t really mean that much to me. Maybe soon they will ask for a zone that correlates to an old EQ zone that I have plenty of play-time in.

What does strike me looking at the maps and comparing them, is again how small the old zone is compared to the new, and the HUGE amount of extra content the new zone holds. Not only that they have turned it in to a much more demanding, visceral, sensual, mob / quest full zone, but they have made it a place to visit in itself. I hunted in the new Feerrott before I went to Cazic Thule . I actually used the zone for some HQ’s and quests. The first time I entered The ‘old’ Feerrott was to travel through to get to Rathe (can’t for the life of me recall why!! I was way too low). It seems the new one may as well be a completely new zone and kin to its older brother in name only. Nowadays I hardly ever visit The Feerrott, more due to being too high level than anything else.

I can tell you one thing though..even though the new zone is far and away superior…I still hate them both. Too cramped you see…I hate being enclosed. Gimme an open plain or a desert any day!

Be well.

Back to the Future...

2011-03-25T04:27:00.000-07:00

It’s been a few days since I had logged in to EQ2 or even kept up to date with the current news and forums that I usually troll. As such last night I had a nice little shock. I logged in to the game and there was an unusually long download, so of course I recognised there had probably been an update or some event had started since I had last logged in. I paid it little heed as I was cooking my dinner at the time so left it to download whilst I chopped and sizzled. When I came back to my PC it had finished and I logged in, immediately heading to the Ring War public quest for some fun and a stab at getting my Chestpiece of Woe. As it turns out it again was not my lucky night.

I decided that I had had enough of Velious for one night and gated back to the guild hall. Now for some reason I still find our guild hall quite laggy at times so when I do I tend to just zone out on to the docks in Antonica and sit there whilst I am chatting to guildies. Anyhow, I was sitting there reading the chat channels and noticed a few folks asking about where some ‘portals were. I thought this was a bit strange as travel through Norrath was easier than ever and use of the old wizard ports was not as common or even really required nowadays, unless you wish to travel to the Kingdom of Sky. It was about then I noticed a load of folks hanging around at the lighthouse right next to the docks in Antonica, so I went up to have a look. There was a weird purple lightning ridden portal there and three chronomancers, one of which was selling goods. They reckoned that strange portals to an ancient time were popping up all over Norrath! I waddled over to the portal by the lighthouse and sure enough, when I ran my cursor over it I saw the text pop up ‘to an ancient time’. Of course I clicked it.

I was told via a screen message that I had automatically been mentored down to level 20 and I found myself in an instanced version of the Firemyst Gully zone, but this time with lots of yellow ^^^ Gnolls wandering around. It didn’t take Voltaan long to discipline a few puppies and soon he was converging on the ugly skull hut in the middle of the zone, outside of which was an advisor. The advisor said something but before I had a chance to read it he was attacking me and Voltaan had one more puppies nose to smack. It was then I noticed two more doggy paws right at the back of the skull hut. Voltaan is so tall he had to bend down to look inside and lo’ and behold, there’s ole Fippy Darkpaw! (I once named had a Rabbit we called Fippy in his honour). So that was what the ‘portal to an ancient time’ thing was all about. I’d totally forgotten Everquests twelve year anniversary was upon us and it looks like as a nice little tribute EQ2 has portals all over the place where old EQ players can go to get their nostalgia on and bash some old nameds.

Next stop was the Enchanted Lands where I found the portal (with some direction from Sjlverwolf, thanks mate) between the Wizard portal and the Druid Ring. This portal mentored me down to level thirty and sent me to that small valley instance that is usually off Antonica (I don’t recall the name!). The scene was supposed to be the ‘Old plains of Karana’ and I wandered around killing some lions and centaurs. Once these had been dispatched a Gnoll Shaman dude ran to the centre of the Druid Ring did a bit of chanting and Voltaan very considerately pulped his nose for him and gave him a good spanking. For a few moments I looked around and nothing else seemed to be happening and I was all like ‘oh, so that’s it?’. It was at that point I noticed a Ranger right by the entrance tunnel that I couldn’t quite believe I had missed earlier, so I ran over for a chat. He told me about Quillmane!

As soon as he did and I recalled Quillmane was the Pegasus who used to drop the Pegasus Feather Cloak of Levitation in EQ1. So I looked up and there he was, flying around in ever decreasing circles until he hovered in the middle of the Druid ring. A couple of things hit me then. One, the graphics for the Pegasus are fantastic and in this age of EQ2 flying mounts, I want one. I have no idea if Sony have any plans to put the model as available to players at a later stage for a flyable mount, but I damn sure hope they do. Quillmane looked awesome. For a short amount of time. After Volt had finished with him, he looked like a sheesh kebab. It was so cool. He dropped the Pegasus Feather Cloak too! The second thing that hit me was that the instance had been successful. Not in that Volt ‘won’ so to speak, but it was successful in stirring up all the memories I had of camping that damn Pegasus in South Karana just so I could hover everywhere with his cloak on. My EQ1 Druid, Kildurin never got past level 46, and when I quit playing he was still wearing that cloak. Great memories.

Quillmane [courtesy of EQ2]

I’ll be doing more of these portals back to an ancient time tonight I think. Lavastorm is next and I have no idea what nostalgia that is going to dig up, but I’m looking forward to it. Bravo SoE. A nice (slightly) redeeming feature after such a poor showing of an expansion. Restored my faith. Just a little.

Be well.

Velious: Unexpected fun

2011-03-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

I’ve had a bit of a surprise the last few days. Just to kill a bit of time of an evening I have been logging in to EQ2 to chat to friends, clear some bags, go through my banks slots. A strange thing happened. My guild leader Sjlverwolf and a few others were indulging in some Public Quests and I didn’t even get asked just got thrown an invite to attend. As I was there to spend time with my friends, this was all fine. We were at what is called The Ring War PQ and I hadn’tbeen involved with them before so had no idea what to expect. It was crazy! So so busy. I was part of a full raid, but there must have been almost another full raid there too and the waves of mobs keep a comin’ until the big bad at the end. It was quite simple and straightforward but was actually quite good fun with so many folks involved in the battle. When the event is over you get a reward given to you by the forces you helped and they are a choice between about 4 or 5 items. If you are lucky you may get your class specific fabled weapon (yellow slot only). One of the rewards is an armour crate. There are various different versions of these but the easy way to tell how successful/lucky you have been is by adornment slot. The good stuff has a yellow and white adorn slot, the average stuff has a white only slot.

Although I have a feeling I will get bored of these very quickly, at the moment I am a bit surprised to find out there is something I enjoy (for the moment) about Velious. Anyhow, after a couple of hours of doing the public quests, I now have Volts Fabled weapon, four armour slots and a couple of adornments. It was a real mental challenge to unequip my tier 2 red slot items for this stuff as I worked hard to get that gear and for it just to be useless and replaced by mainly legendary kinda sticks in my craw. But I guess it’s unavoidable and I already have had my fair share of moaning on that subject. Even though it’s a shame to see all that hard work go to waste, the new kit even though legendary is quite a bit better. It doesn’t necessarily look so on paper, but because of the combat & stats changes they have made, it just seems to work. My dps for the heroic training dummy (solo’d) went from around 13-14k to over 24k just with the few legendary pieces I have and my new weapon. The mind boggles at what the raid stuff will be like, but I guess that’s a non issue for me nowadays. I still have it in my mind to quit the game at some point soon and most definitely won't be playing seriously anymore, just helpin' me Bro and messin about doing the occasional public quest.

On to bike news, the first race of the MotoGP season has been and gone and it was a great season starter. Of course my boy Vale didn't do as well as he would have liked with a seventh position, but then again he is still badly affected by injury and the bike is nowhere near ready for him yet. Another rider plagued by injury and perhaps more disappointing for him as he wasn't expecting the old injury to flair up was Dani Pedrosa who battled with Casey Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo for the first two thirds of the race then dropped dramatically back when the old injury in his left arm flared up rendering his arm pretty much useless. Congratulations go to Casey Stoner for an almost perfect race, but particularly Jorge Lorenzo who after seeing his Yamaha be dominated by the Hondas throughout winter testing and for each of the practice sessions and also qualifying, managed to battle off the rest of the Hondas to get second place on the podium. An awe inspiring ride.

Jorge Lorenzo. Qatar MotoGP 2011

Be well.

This is the end..beautiful friend..

2011-03-15T08:38:00.000-07:00

A long weekend has just passed and I must have logged in to EQ2 about two or three times. Each of those was pretty much just for 30 minutes to say ‘Hi’ and chat to friends. I think it’s safe to say that my predictions were correct; Velious has killed the game for me. I was worried this would happen. I quit EQ1 on the same expansion and although I didn’t let myself be influenced by that as EQ2 is a very different kettle of fish, but it’s weird how it’s happened again. This time round though, I doubt I will be quitting altogether. It is just Velious that I am struggling to get my head round, so I expect I’ll still be hanging out with my Bro in tier 7 and up (more about that in a bit) and helping / grouping with guildies. Having said that I’m not so sure how many of them will need any help as it won’t be too long before all of them have way out geared Volt by doing their public quests and grabbing that armour. Not that this bothers me, I won’t be around so much and my equipment etc only bothered me when I needed it to clear content. Now I have made the decision to not get so involved in Velious and its raid side of things, I’m not really that bothered about getting myself kitted up.

That brings me on to my main gripe with the new expansion and I have mentioned this before. I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone but the most experienced raider with the toughest of raid groups cannot do the Velious content with their Tier2/3 raid gear from the Sentinels Fate expansion. Why let your players gear themselves up to the third best set of armour in game and way better than many of the player base has then not let it be good enough to start with the most basic of raids in the next expansion. That just seems crazy to me. ‘To me’ is the important part there and it’s what has made me realise that I am no longer a hardcore EQ2 player. It used to be that even with my limited play time, if I spent that time correctly and wisely I could quite easily still operate at the level of semi-hardcore raider. But now just to get started raiding I will have to spend a long time doing PQS, instances Just to get gear good enough to start trying to raid effectively. Not a bad thing really I guess as the best stuff is usually a good reward for the hardest obtained content, but the point is, it doesn’t suit me and the time I have available. I simply do not have time to do all that to get myself ready to raid. So, it’s time to hang up my bashin’ boots and move back in to the category of ‘casual player’ and maybe even in to ‘extremely casual player’. It’s sad, but EQ2 is very much a social network for me now, and very little else.

So, how have I been spending my time? Well, like I said I have had a few sessions in EQ2 (none in Velious) and I have spent the ones where I actually got in to something constructive, with my Bro. We had a riot the other day starting the cloud questline series in Tenebrous Tangle and then on in to The Barren Sky. I haven’t ever done this questline on any of my toons previously, so really enjoyed helping out the critters in TT. We managed to get all the part of the quest done in Sanctum of Scaleborn along with some other quest completions there, then headed off to The Barren Sky in ‘cloud session’ number 2. Oh, whilst I remember, flying my mount through Barren Sky and TT was pretty damn cool. After doing the first few quests in BS, we both called it a night. I’m looking forward to continuing this. Much much better fun than that Velious tripe.

Other than that it has been family time. The weather mostly over the long weekend was rubbish, but we got a few rays of sunshine on Sunday and made the most of the time by heading out for a walk and some lunch. Saturday morning was a particularly pleasant morning for me. Normally my little one ensures that I’m awake by about 0700hrs, if I am lucky, 0800hrs, but that particular morning when she woke very cutely shouting for attention, I looked at the clock and it was 1015hrs. I was overjoyed at my lazy lie-in and virtually skipped out of bed refreshed and happy. I walked out of my bedroom and all that changed when the smell hit me. Yup, my late wakeup call had forced poor old pooch to crap all over my hallway. Couldn’t help but feel sorry for him though, he looked all sad as I was cleaning up. Breakfast was pleasant. In other news, I’m going to be self flagellating later. Sounds weird? Well I deserve it. What did I do? Not spend any time on my novel this week. Gutting. I reckon I’ll be heading over to my writing pad more and more though now that EQ2 is enjoying its swansong for me.

Before I go, much sympathy and heartfelt wishes to those who need it in Japan and beyond. I am truly truly shocked at the devastation and incomprehensible suffering our fellow humans are having to go through over there. I wish you all luck in finding all your loved ones well and for those who don’t I wish you all the support and enough strength to get through day to day.

Whilst all this is going on, spare a thought for the Haitians. Over a year on and being a third world country they have seen no improvement in their lot. At all. The government continues to be corrupt, recent elections last year were twisted beyond belief and the local communities in the camps still are having to physically fight so they can get their water supplies for their family. Yup they get about half a bucket of water a week. If they are lucky. On top of that the lack of water means they are drinking waste water and with that comes Cholera which is hugely infectious. With already around 4000 dead from the epidemic, the estimates are that this will rise about 100,000 before it fizzles out. Bringing the total dead from the earthquake disaster and the aftermath to around 400,000. Apparently over half of which were below the age of 16.

The simple and undeniable fact is that Haiti offers nothing to the international community other than a bit of tourism and the smallest smallest amount of natural reserves which mainly go to its own economy anyhow, and as such the country is largely being ignored. If Haiti found massive oil reserves tomorrow, you can bet your bottom dollar things would be different. The billions that were pledged in relief have not arrived because those pledging the money are only doing so for clearance contracts and construction/infrastructure contracts from the Government, who you can bet will bleed those deals dry and the populace will suffer a thousand fold while the corrupt Government decide who can make the most money from who. It is the poorest country in the western hemisphere with half the country’s wealth belonging to the top 1% of citizens. Ask yourself what their chances are of a decent life in the next 20 years.

Be well.

Raid weekend

2011-03-08T08:12:00.000-08:00

Last night was my first raid in to Velious content as the Fraternity hit ‘Kraytoks Fortress of Rime’ in the Great Divide. It really was only a fact finding mission and we had just under three groups of folks attending. It was interesting to see the new strats and nameds. Wow, they hit hard, and a lot. I really was surprised about the difference. Stone skin was absorbing 50k hits and we went down regularly. It was still fun and after a bit of hashing the first nameds actually died to things falling from the ceiling and not us, so we moved to the second named and played with that for a while. In the end no nameds were killed but we gathered some good hints and tips for our next visit. Part of the problem was the new kit required. I have seen some tanks walking around with about 50k health because they are wearing the new Ork faction gear from Eastern Wastes. I guess we need to get our own hit points up to that kind of level before we can take the new expansions raiding seriously. The devs did mention somewhere that unless you have wing 3 of Underfoot Caverns on farm status it is unlikely you will succeed at the raids at first. We didn’t have that on farm.

I’m starting to think about knocking top tier raiding on the head. Now that Ema has moved on it’s still fun but there seems to be something missing and add to this the fact that for us to succeed in the new raid zones there will have to be some pretty crazy faction grinding and some intensive instance running for shards, I’m really not sure I have the time or the enthusiasm to chase those goals. I’m yet to decide, but I think I may just stick to normal adventuring and raiding previous tiers soon.

Saturday night saw the Acolytes of Valor head out to The Pillars of Flame and in to The Court of Al’Afaz. The turn out wasn’t too bad really for an event only posted on the in game calendar. Yeah, we only had 9 attendees for a x4 raid, but the fact that a few were mentored down from 90 more than made up for the shortfall. As ever it was a typical AoV raid, plenty of fun and giggles and me getting folks all confused as I tried to read loads of tells and navigate round the zone. Subsequently I ended up leading everyone in circles as I decided which tower we would hit next. All good fun. One funny part for me was the last fight against The Black Queen. I warned everyone that she teleports random members of the group round the zone and my Bro asked me “what happens if you get teleported as main tank?” My answer was that you would have to try and manage as best you could but it isn’t likely to happen. Guess who was ported first? Yup. It’s a real pain when you are ported in that fight as you have to wait for the lifts to get back up the tower. They take a long time to cycle as it is, but when you are trying to get to your raid force after being ported, they seem to take forever. Anyhow, by the time I had got back up there, the mob was on like 2% health, so no worries. A fun night in all.

Ema has been making herself busy since she has quit EQ2. Not spending so much time on the computer or indeed RIFT (she says it’s too laggy), she has been catching up on watching her soaps and in addition, creating wondrous dishes in the kitchen. I think the latest series of Masterchef has something to do with that. Not that I am complaining, although my waistline has ballooned a little in the last week. Time to hit the beach with the Nikes methinks.

Be well.

It leaves a nasty taste..

2011-03-03T03:25:00.000-08:00

I feel violated. Last night wifey and I sat down to watch a movie, ‘The Human Centipede’. I knew it was going to be a shocker movie, something along the lines of ‘Hostel’, but it was worse. I guess there were some artistic aspects and a pompous critic may say it’s ‘a journey through the doors of consciousness, exploring the depths of Human depravity’, but quite honestly that’s poppycock. It’s pretty damn sick and actually made me feel a little ill at times. It’s very weird indeed. I have seen in real life much more gross and gory things in law enforcement, but watching it on the screen for fun, well, it’s just not my cup of tea thanks. Sick film and I suggest you stay away. For what it’s worth, the wifey loved it and even says it’s in her top ten now. This worries me! I wonder if I should take note that her top ten also includes ‘House of a Thousand Corpses’ and ‘The Devils Rejects’. Disturbing.
Mental note: Sleep now requires one eye open.

Speaking of wifey, it looks like she has now quit EQ2 permanently and has followed her friends to RIFT, downloading the game last night. I knew this was a perma thing when I logged in to having all her coin in my inbox. I’m now a lot of plat richer. Not that there is anything to buy nowadays. I’m still feeling my way round the new expansion but I’m finding I don’t have a lust to head to the new zones every day. Yesterday for example, I didn’t visit Velious at all when I logged in and instead headed over to Pillars of Flame to hang out with my Bro for a bit. Even though I was a bit of a spare part as wifey downloading RIFT made my lag range anywhere from 2 to 10 seconds behind, I still had fun just hanging. We headed in to The Clefts of Rujark too just to make sure Merecraft got all the AA and big quests done in there. We still have to head back to do ‘Scornfeather Roost’ instance but aside from that there isn’t too much left to do in there. I’m looking forward to when he heads to Tenebrous Tangle as I haven’t done the Cloud Mount questline on Volt yet. I love that zone also, great fun. Basket quests and freeing frogs from Scaleborn tower captivity remains my lasting memory. Although I have already done the Claymore questline on Volt, I’d be more than willing to accompany my Bro through it. It’s incredibly long and arduous, but leads you nicely through TT and The Barren Sky and the instances in both. Good storyline too.

This coming Saturday, the guild are heading to The Court of Al Afaz raid zone for some fun. I’m looking forward to that. I’m trying to provide some earlier raid content as those are the levels folks struggle to get groups/raids at and are the best levels for them to start learning raid strats. Yeah, I know the historic mobs are pretty much tank n spank but it’s good to start indoctrination in to the basics at an early stage. That way you know that if you can master things like ‘stay behind the tank at all times’. You know, the real simple stuff that gets everyone killed if not abided by in later tiers. Aside from all that it’s always fun to simply hang with my guildies. I kind of plan on doing progression raiding for a while until Velious raiding becomes a bit more run of the mill. Taking the guild to SF raid zones will achieve little at the moment. The loot dropped from the mobs that we could tackle as a guild has already been superceded by the Velious quest legendary gear. So, we’ll be doing some tier 7 then 8 raids after Court of Al Afaz. It’s always fun re-visiting the old raid zones.

Right, that’s it for today, work beckons! I’ll be online tonight no doubt with wifey trying out RIFT. I certainly won’t be watching any movies with her anyhow. My choice next time. I think it’s going to have to be Toy Story 3.

Be well.

Velious Flyby

2011-02-28T16:36:00.000-08:00

I feel like a kid again. A kid who has been given a new toy. Whilst I'm still a little under enthused I am enjoying Velious a little more, mainly down to two reasons. Firstly I'm getting in to the Velious and currently Othmir timeline and back story. It's not to bad a tale and I find myself warming to the cute little Othmir. They remind me (especially Nipik) of a cross between faithful little beavers and an Irish Terrier. Secondly, I now have my flyable mount and I absolutely love it. I have found myself travelling the long way round just so I get to fly to where I'm heading, even shunning in zone teleportation/travel devices at all costs just so I can mess about a bit in the air. One of the things I love about it so much is the different perspective you can get of some of the truly great locations.

Anyhow, progression and gathering of equipment this expansion so far has been zilch. I haven't replaced any of my Tier 2 yet, but I am storing my quest rewards and drops just in case I start to understand the mechanics changes better and realise the kit is actually really good. I have only done one instance so far (Tower of Frozen Shadow) and even then I was half asleep and not really concentrating, so I have a huge way to go before I become comfortable in knowing all the mechanics, routes and nameds. But finding out is half the fun, so when I have progressed the quest timeline a bit more I think I'll actively try and get involved in doing some more.
I don't have much time today, so I'm going to have to leave it there. Before I do, a quick shout out to our boys from Hereford. A stirling job well done. Keep your powder dry fellas.

One last thing, before I go it's about time I added some Velious media. There should be another to follow. Enjoy..

Be well.