Donuts n Drifts

What a fun weekend! I had a chance to catch up on loads of movies, gaming and most importantly had a real blast with the kids. Saturday morning saw the three of us head to the shops where my daughters proceeded to buy their own choice of Christmas trees and decorations. I had told them that this year they get to make their own Christmas trees up, being able to choose everything. The results were surprisingly good their choice of colours all matched and were actually quite tasteful. The trees they decorated look fantastic! My house is starting to feel very Christmassy indeed and we are all getting in the festive mood.

Gaming wise saw some real progression in DIRT3 and I’m pleased to say I’m getting offers left right and center from racing Teams to join their squads. I am having some problems though. The Gymkana stages are a huge amount of fun, but I have to say I’m distinctly average at it. I just can’t seem to get the hang of it. Yes, I can do the donuts and spins and drifts, but not with the precision required and it does take me a few precious seconds to get a donut or spin started in the correct zones. When you’re doing a time trial run those seconds are incredibly important. The highest medal I have achieved so far in those stages is a Silver. If you know me and driving games, I’m a bit of a perfectionist and my inability to grasp the intricacies of this particular part of the game is driving me round the bend! (excuse the pun). Practice makes perfect. I’ll get there I’m sure. 

Free Weekend

There are plenty of negatives to it, but I'm a glass half full kinda guy. One of the bonuses of having my marriage break down is the spare time I have all of a sudden been gifted. I'm sharing custody of the kids, and that means every other week I get a free weekend. Totally free. No one to please but me. It's been years since I have had that kinda freedom. So, what did I do with my free weekend?

Normally such freedom would mean me heading out on my motorbike to enjoy the stunning scenery and mountain ranges in the general locale, but that's not possible since someone knocked me off it a couple of months ago and she still sits on my drive with a hole in the side of her engine waiting for the Insurance company to pull their finger out. There is another reason I didn't do that this weekend, but that's down to me being a wuss. It's bloody cold here. Especially in the mountains. Well, relatively. I have been in the south of Spain for 6 years now and my blood must have thinned enough for me to start feeling the relative cold. It's only about 10 degrees here, which isn't 'too' bad when in the UK, but here, it's nippy. So that kind of confined me to the house aside from a couple of strolls down to the port to grab some take away food.

In order, my weekend went like this. Friday evening it started with the gathering of munchies, collation of booze and tabletop Call of Cthulhu roleplaying. A really fun session that saw the return of my burly woodkeeper ' Cutter' to the fray. Although he didn't actually get up to much as he is very much more the brawn than brains of the group and it was a particularly cerebral session. He seemed to be in the background a bit as a result, but he'll get his time to shine again soon I am sure! He did get to use some of his legendary tracking skills though up in Derbyshire, where he was hunting what we think may turn out to be a Werewolf. I'm sure there will be some chances for him to get physical though soon, the session was left in a real cliffhanger! That session ended late (I'm an hour in front of the rest of the players), so I logged in to EQ2 for about an hour, then watched some TBBT and went to bed.

Digital Buddy

So, I have this habit of logging in to EQ2 just after I have made the kids their dinner and going /AFK until I then get them settled in bed later. Just me being lazy really so as soon as the little ones are asleep I can get straight in to the action. But I'm very happy that last night I did that.

I was walking past the computer and saw in the chat box "Naadir has logged in". I couldn't hardly contain myself. Naadir is Jahf, an old friend from way back when in EQ2 history and we have stayed strong buddies ever since. He's a sterling fella and I have a great fondness for our friendship. So, after not seeing him for so long online (it's been, well it's been bloody ages!) it was wonderful to be able to chat to him again and catch up. Really made my week that did.

He's digging out his mic so tonight we can chat away the evening just like old times, putting the world to rights and generally having a right old laugh. That's what I love about EQ2 and online gaming in general, especially MMOs where the community is central to the game. I've tried explaining it to folks who look at me like I have just been crowned the 'King of the Nerds' when I tell them I indulge in a bit of online role playing in a Massively Multiplayer Online game. But what they don't realise is that whilst they are sat on their couch watching Coronation Street, that I am reaching out around the world and making new contacts and feeding existing friendships. That's right you don't have to have physically met someone to be their friend!

I'm Back?

Well, it looks like I'm back! Well, until I get too bored or busy again.

Quite a lot has happened since my last post way back when on Thursday November 10th 2011.

My real life has been chaotic, crazy, heartbreaking, joyful, and in some circumstances, very lucky!

My wife of 13 years left me, but we're still good mates and are sharing custody of the kids. All is happy in that arena now. I also got a new job. A pretty well paid one with quite a lot of responsibility and that seems to be going well too. My youngest daughter hit 4 years old, my oldest will be 11 in January.

Gaming wise, I am still dabbling in EQ2, but to be honest haven't done anything constructive really in either the Age of Discovery Ex-Pac, or indeed the new one, Chains of Eternity. I have them both, but just seem to dabble in the quests or mentor down helping folks when I log in. A couple of nights a go I took part in my first raid for an age! It was fun to see Volt way down the parse with the healers after a couple of years of top end hiatus. I certainly have a lot of work to do in exploring the last two ex-pacs and getting the old codger up to speed. 18 months ago I was used to seeing him near the top of the parse always. It's nice to have a challenge.

On Hold...

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

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 know! It's been a while..

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

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.

When the music's over, turn off the lights

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.

Alts, I've had a few.

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 Reluctant Raider

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.

"10-42"

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.

GU#61..more info

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!)

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.

GU61 - Success or Failure?

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

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

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

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.

Construction Complete

 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

300!

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.