I might never get my epic rogue epic 1.5 done in EverQuest. I work a little on the tradeskills, get bored, and start looking for trouble. I logged in last night, did two weapons in the test of smithing, then had to go to Crystal Caverns and farm some velium ore for the Velious test. Snuck into Thurgadin after to get some Coldain Temper, was heading out to the Plane of Knowledge book in the Great Divide to return to the forge, when… I went a different way. ...
In Dungeons & Dragons Online, Kasul and I finished our trip through all the Korthos Island instances on Elite mode, giving each of us the maximum amount of favor you can get from those quests. Misery Peak, the one where you don’t kill the dragon, was its usual platforming mini game of jumping around a multilevel maze looking for levers and fighting ice spiders. Since it was his first time, Kasul didn’t know you were supposed to pretend you were actually killing the dragon for uber screenshots. Next time. ...
MMO devs fire broadside press releases at my inbox, and I inflict them on others. We’ll suffer together or not at all. Actually, let’s start off with a non-MMO offer. The Humble Indie Bundle from Wolfire Games collects five acclaimed Indie games (including the addictive building game World of Goo, underwater fantasy Aquaria, innovative platformer Gish, rabbit beat’m’up Lugaru, and horror adventure game Penumbra Overture. Until Monday, you can get all of these games AND donate to Electronic Freedom Foundation AND Child’s Play … at any price you want, divided between charities and the developers any way you want. This is a can’t lose deal – I was up till 2AM last night playing World of Goo… on my Linux box. ...
You say you’re about to do “The Proof is in the Poison” quest you picked up in the Stormreach Market? You’re standing at the door, about to click in? Wondering how hard this adventure is going to be for you and your pals? STOP! Just … just stop right there. Time to take a little inventory of your party’s levels. Do you have a rogue in your party? Does this fine person have at least two levels of rogue to their name? ...
Progression through EverQuest’s Underfoot expansion is built entirely through their new achievement system. It’s all about the achievement, isn’t it? You can get achievements for steamrolling dungeons, doing them without deaths or other limitations (like no crowd control), just exploring new zones…. Not so different from achievements in any other MMO, though perhaps not to the level of World of Warcraft. In previous expansions, finding your progress through it wasn’t all that easy. If you forgot where you were in Kunark’s epic weapon quest, too bad for you. Most people kept check lists so they could scratch off each step as it was completed. ...
IcyWiz on Twitter shared her Beckett Magazine EQ2 code for a Ssraezha Observer’s Staff. I happily toko it and redeemed it on my EQ2 account, only then remembering my only casters on that account were island babies – characters I kept on the island for harvesting and crafting reasons and well, there was no reason to take them on. I spent a few hours this weekend leveling one of them, Tsuki, to 20, so she could wield the staff (it being an appearance slot item). The Timorous Deep newbie zone was its same old reliable experience machine and it didn’t take me more than maybe three hours to get through it. This weekend being a bonus experience weekend helped, too. ...
Lots of people really do ask me what I DO in EverQuest? Truth be told, most of the time I am either working on my Epic 1.5 (the rogue epic quest is THE WORST of them all), do monster missions for gear and experience, or do the Boomerang! event in Brell’s Rest. It’s a simple arena game; everyone in the party chooses a team – red, blue or gold, like in Star Trek – and each is given boomerangs in their opponent’s two colors. You enter, are transformed into a gnoll of your color, and you run around and fling boomerangs at enemies while dodging boomerangs thrown at you, as well as explosive barrels that drop randomly from the ceiling. You get one point for hitting an enemy; lose one point for being hit twice and lose five points for being blown up by an explosive barrel. After five minutes, the top three get gold tokens (used to buy high level uber weapons), and everyone gets silver tokens appropriate to their point total, used to buy a wide variety of gear and augments. ...
Yeah, I know I’m late on this, but… EQ2’s Passport program? $5/month for three consecutive days of play per month? Absolute genius. To recap what the plan offers: Weekend Warrior Your game, your time and your money. You choose when to play! This is your chance to continue to play the game you love, with all your friends and most importantly, when you want! Party Crasher With the EQII Passport, your alt accounts or inactive accounts will not have to miss another seasonal event or special game update. Visit Norrath to participate in fun-filled events and festivities at a discount. ...
After about a month of occasional work on it, I’ve completed the first task in my Rogue 1.5 epic. In that same time, I’ve gained 10 levels, from 71 to 81… This portion of the epic requires, for no really good reason, that the rogue master several trade skills. The first: cooking, which also required some skill in fishing, smithing, pottery and brewing. Thankfully, I had a character who is decent at tradeskills; back when I first started EQ in 1999, I had this idea that tradeskills could make me rich. I found out eventually that if tradeskills could make me rich, then being poor was okay with me. Such a mind-numbing – and expensive – grind. My then-main at the time, the halfling druid Etha, came away with decent skills in all the needed trades, so she handled the non-cooking parts of this first task. ...
I logged into Ironforge and pressed the screenshot button. Didn’t move, didn’t turn. Three sparkly ponies! Suddenly my epic mechanostrider seemed rare and unusual. Vanguard may be the only game I have ever played that lets you make such elaborate ships. I believe Ultima Online let you make them, and I know Darkfall lets you, and of course Pirates of the Burning Sea and Florensia have ship building as a big part of game play, but does any other game let you launch your ship and then walk away, leaving it docked in the world? ...