Lots of updates to progressin EverQuest II and, unfortunately, not a lot of time to write about them, so here goes.
I have three goals in EQ2 at the moment – finishing Heritage Quests for our guild, Nostalgia, getting Dina’s tailoring to 80 and also finishing the Rise of Kunark expansion by defeating Trakanon in Veeshan’s Peak. Once these are done, I’ll probably start focusing on doing TSO missions. I was reading yesterday about a friend who has almost finished his second set of TSO armor; I don’t even have one item from the first set. I spent about ten void shards on resist jewelry for raiding and have five or so left over. Most TSO missions I’m in – pickup groups every one, as Kasul and I are Nostalgia’s only active members doing TSO content and we’re far too few to form a group – end in failure, so it’s just a gigantic waste of time, usually taking more than an hour to finally abandon the mission with a pile of debt and repair bills.
It’s probably just me. I’m so far behind the curve that I usually have absolutely no idea what’s going on. People just rush rush rush and then we’re all dead. I’m looking forward to seeing what those rumored solo missions for void shards look like; at least I’d be able to pace a solo mission so I’d have some idea of what I was supposed to be doing.
I love EQ2 and the friends who play, but I feel more and more as time passes that EQ2 doesn’t have much use for people who just enjoy playing and grouping as a social experience. I still look back to nights spent happily whacking kobolds in Sol B, chatting and having a good time without much time pressure at all. People would sometimes just head to Guk or OS and just sit at zone in and chat while waiting for a group, and everyone knew everyone else.
Whatever happened to the social MMO? Did it die after EQ?
ANYWAY. Valentine’s Day brought some new outfits to the EQ2 RMT store. Kaladim Stormguard armor is the bluish set on the left, and it looks really nice. Not nice enough to blow so much money on, but … love the hat. You can get a similar hat just by itself (and another one which looks like that stocking cap that guy in Fat Albert used to wear), raising the chances that you’ll soon be able to buy the brigand/swashie Hamburglar hat. When I was a guide back in EQ, people used to ask me all the time when they’d be able to get the hats like the halfling guards used to wear in and around Rivervale. I’d just tell them I wanted one, too! My main character wears a mask already; now she wants a hat to go along with it.
Maybe soon!
I was curious what the Wings of the Void cloak, which looks like two giant bat wings, would look like on a character who already had wings. Would they replace them? Would they just not show? Nope. Instead, you grow an additional pair of wings over your own set. The effect is creepy. I don’t think many Fae or Arasai are going to be in the market for another set of wings. Way too many to keep clean.
Last night, the Ascarey raid group finished clearing Veeshan’s Peak’s second wing. It was an enormously successful run – first pull kills on Nexona, Druushk, Taskmaster and all the other dragons in the second wing, except for Xygoz. And even then, we didn’t wipe.
Xygoz … is a funny dragon. He’s a big dreamer. You come upon him when he’s just so sound asleep that he doesn’t even notice a raid snuck up on him. After you’ve been poking him awhile, he blurrily starts fighting back, then gives up and goes back to sleep, where he dreams about being attacked by a whole raid of people! Bad dream! Go away!
His dreams are magical and real and take form in the back of his lair, where a miniature Xygoz is being attacked by a miniature raid, and every person in the raid is there. Every raider has to go find their miniature double and pluck them out of the dream. Picture is of me with mine. Isn’t she cute? I want a Dina-doll for my house :)
This wakes Xygoz up, and he reluctantly gets back in the fight, but that is so exhausting that he falls asleep – AGAIN – but this time, he dreams that all the other dragons of Veeshan’s Peak are sitting around his lair, laughing at him for being such a wuss. The raid kills dream-Trakanon, which finally gets Xygoz back in the game, and then he dies.
Xygoz, Ashenwing and Hoshkar completed my and Kasul’s Trakanon keys, so now we’re able to go take down the Big Bad himself.
With the help of Kasul and Namien, Nostalgia completed the Return of the Light HQ and 2x Missing Mask HQ, and that brings the guild somewhat closer to level 42. Which is the answer to everything, of course. We were lucky enough to get a Nektropos Castle instance with the Swine Lord and the Chapel Billy up already, so all we had to camp was the Game Room Billy and the dark elf mask was nothing more than walking back and forth through the castle a million times. By the time we finished, I was lagging so badly I could barely move. I don’t know what happened there.
Someday, I’m getting a computer that can run EQ2 well. MAYBE Vanguard and Lord of the Rings as well, for a bonus.
I finished some of the Valentine’s Day quests on Brightknife. Gathering the roses in Enchanted Lands was a little challenging as most of the mobs there were way above her level. Fortunately, most of the ones in the area closest to the village weren’t hostile, so I got the roses and presented them to unwary people on the Commonlands and Nektulos Forest docks. Didn’t get any titles, but I did get a bunch of cool rewards, like a pet that tosses out hearts and a glowy thing that makes me all glowy. And a new cloak. In fact, I apparently loved the Valentine’s outfit so much I wore it in place of my armor, as pointed out to me by someone in our Return of the Light group after we’d finished the instance.
Oops.
Anyway, out of time, but I’ll see you in Norrath :)