50 reasons to head to the Desert

Had a good night last night. I didn’t get to log in until later and when I did I spent some well deserved time on Udrath finishing quests in Everfrost. I managed to get him to 50th level in no time at all, so now he is ready to join level locked Merecraft in some Sinking Sands quest fun. I’m really looking forward to it. It has literally been an age since I spent time in Sinking sands and it’s one of my fave zones/areas. Weird how things like that change. I used to really dislike the place. I guess way back then my computer was pretty puny and I always had to have the graphics really low. Perhaps that assisted in my dislike as on low end graphics SS is a pretty bleak place. Try running it on top graphics if you can. The difference is great, the place comes alive.

After getting Uddy to 50th the guild were looking for someone to help them in Unrest who knew how to do all the puzzles. I was really glad I was finished as Unrest is probably one of my favourite zones. So I hopped on Voltaan, mentored down to 79th and in 40 mins or so we had a cleared Unrest including the x2 Bugaboo. I remember the first jaunt I had in Unrest for a couple of reasons. The first being it was the start of my raiding career. Nope Unrest is obviously not a raid zone, but the first time I headed in there was when I was playing my Necro Shadowraethe and it was with a pick up group. Well. I was the pick up. The rest knew each other as they were all part of the guild, the Inquisition. We finished the instance and the tank Beefcake told me he was Guild Leader and did I fancy going raiding with them. From that very first contact I have since made a huge amount of friends and had a riot whilst raiding over the years.

The second reason I remember the first jaunt into Unrest is that it took around 8 hours. At the time when you were playing ‘on tier’ and having never been there before, wow, it took ages to work out the puzzles and in addition to this the mobs were tough. I mean real tough for us back then. I recall old Unrest runs being done in three sessions. Luckily it was one of the first ‘instanced persistent’ zones so you could go back the next day to finish off from where you left it the previous session. Anyhow, it just seems really weird to plough through the zone in such a short time after sooooo many hours there previously. Great zone and a huge amount of fun. I recall the first time we met that crazy Gnome and his stupid bombs. The panic that ensued when the message comes up telling us there was a bomb in some ones bag was hilarious. The “Who’s got it? Find it! Who’s got...oh, it was Shadow. He just exploded” will stay with me forever. Learning that zone from scratch was a right old giggle.

I’m tempted when we go there with Mere not to tell him anything about it and let him work the puzzles out. It may take a couple of sessions to get through, but wow, what fun! Oh, dammit. Realised I just gave some of the strats away. No worries, there is a huge amount more fun in there than just bombs.

Finally, if you are feeling depressed about your job, this won’t help. Those lucky gits at Ducati MotoGP had a lot of fun in their off season so far. This week they have been messing about with some of the Formula1 dudes racing on ice. It’s a tough life at the top.

 

Be well.