Weekend update.

I noticed I mentioned in my previous post that I would let you in on how my weekends gaming went. I kinda got sidetracked from that in to some musings about how I spend my time. So, without further ado, here’s the update.

Mostly I spent this weekend trying to catch up with the things my limited time online doesn’t usually allow for. Such as harvesting rares for expert spells. That went well in that I managed to get a lot of ‘node face time’, but relatively little luck in finding the rare drops. I only picked up one Ulterian Diamond and one Brellium, and that’s it. From about 4 hours worth of mining. That’s not going to help me too much as I need about 6 more Brellium (to Tinker my hoverpad and get some resist jewellery together) and precisely 17 Kaborites for Voltaans skills. Adurj is fully expert/master on his skills.

I also did a couple of instances with Adurj and Voltaan (separately) without too much drama and had a lot of fun with my guildmates doing those. But, the most fun I had all weekend was questing in Stonebrunt. By far. I know it seems a strange thing to say. Anyone who has done the SF questlines will know they are kinda fun, but also a little tedious with a huge amount of running around (although I think the Panda area in Sundered Frontier is worst for that). So why did I enjoy all that running around so much? Well, I was grouped with my wife on her Coercer, ‘Floh’. That’s why. That may seem like a weird thing to say in that most probably think I play EQ2 with my wife all the time. Well, we are online at the same time, we are sat a few feet away from each other when playing but very rarely play the game together. In fact I would say we haven’t gamed together seriously for years. It’s something some of my old online mates struggled to get to grips with. One couple who we met through game but get on with very well in real life (Hi Cyllan and Kael!) always grouped together and I know for a fact Kael when he played EQ2 did not like doing anything without his better half. As such they struggled to understand why I spent pretty much next to no time online with my wife.

She has her group of dedicated EQ2 mates and I have mine. Yeah, some overlap and I get on very well with her main guildy friends (I was in Tapiolan Sankarit for a while too). The reason we don’t group so much? Well, my wife is a bit of a leet player. I’m a dedicated casual I would say. In short, I and the people I hang with (in the main) cannot compete with her groups that she sets up. They are (mostly) simply crazy awesome in skill, ability and equipment. So I rarely get asked to go join them. Why would they? I mean I know I have a scintillating personality, but when given a choice of asking Adurj along against their normal dirge who is pretty darn mega, there is no contest. They like to conquer content and progress, quickly. I like that too but I guess our play styles are just a little different is all.

So, anyway. That’s why I enjoyed this weekends gaming so much. I got to spend not just real life time but in game time with my wife, which is rare but pretty wonderful seeing as she’s not just my wife but also my best mate. We had such a laugh as we were going through the quests we had to stop regularly to get our bearings because neither of us were concentrating and were just messing about.

Tonight is my first proper raid back with the old raiding crew again and I’m really looking forward to it (Wifey will be on raid too-yeah!). Mainly because the people there are such nice folk, I love spending time with them. But also I am excited to see what content there is and how we can conquer it. I know my resists are going to let me down though. I just hope they don't let the raid down too much. I am going to try and organise my equipment so I am wearing my best resist stuff but until I can afford the three sets of Brellium jewellery, I know my resists are probably not going to be good enough. I just hope I’m not a burden to the raid force because of that. If it gets to the point where I am a drain on the raid and need to be constantly res’d then I’ll revaluate until I can get some good resist gear. I guess I have to remember that I have been out of hardcore raiding for a while and it’s going to take me some time to get back up to speed. I’m certainly looking forward to it though.

As a little side note, we're only half way through the month an already I'm closing up to the max amount of posts I have ever posted in a month on this blog (Nov'09 = 13 posts, Jan'10 = 12 posts, June'10 = 12 posts, August'10 = 12 posts). Looks like it's gonna be a doozy of a month with lots of content from me to help you sleep ;)

Be well.