EverQuest

It takes a lot of soul shredding to satiate a Fear god. I shredded in the Commonlands. I shredded in Nektulos Forest. I even shredded in the new Nektropos Castle instance (tip: bring repair kits. Lots of them.) I eventually shredded those hundred souls and brought them to the Fear portal in the Feerrott. I fed them to the portal, and it spit out a samhain to stagger about the area. It was not attackable and non-aggro; all those similar mobs near the portal must have been summoned by others that completed the quest. ...

I spent a week and a day sailing uncharted shores. Upon my return, there were everywhere whispers and rumors of the old gods. Strange creatures, strange even for the Feerrott, appeared near the dread Temple of Cazic-Thule, burst from between the cracks and crevices of what seemed a solid wall of rock. I found no solid wall when I arrived; instead, tunnels and caves filled with the shades of those long dead and the arcane creatures distilled from the lost planes of existence. ...

I have to be honest – I’m a bit ambivalent about reaching level 70 (soon; level 66 at the moment). On one hand - I no longer have to get experience. On the other hand, it’s either raid or stagnate or work on alts. Now, I hardly ever find myself doing things just for experience, anyway. Working on quests or doing instances for loot makes grinding unnecessary. I usually make half a level in a few hours of grouping, doing almost anything. ...

Though we didn’t get to go to the Comic Con yesterday, it did mean I was able to finish up the Deception quest to get my first Prismatic weapon from Nagafen as reward for taking care of Darathar’s threat. Turns out his anger over Lady Vox’s death and frustration at the Drakota for bringing a dozen kinds of pain to the people of Norrath and his anger at Darathar himself for stealing Naggy’s “only” prismatic egg were just a ruse to get us worked up enough to do his dirty work for him. ...

Finally finished getting my Xegonite Melodic armor. My guild leader, Xagain, gave me a present of most of the pieces when I turned 62, but due to my personal definition of what arm meant (armor worn on your arm) versus EQ2’s definition (armor worn on your wrist), I got a bracer instead of what EQ2 calls shoulder armor. So, since due to all the restless level 70s foraging and sending the prices of those forages plummeting, xegonite was cheap enough that I bought a cluster and had the arms shoulders made. ...

And the subtitle for this story is, “Why Halflings Don’t Wear Dresses”. My son is making a killing selling Tier 4 harvested crafting items on the broker. He buys up anything selling for less than a gold, then resells it for 2-3 gold - each. And so it was that all the feyiron and hides and roots he was saving for me disappeared. The new crafting updates for Live Update 25 has made a boom market for those selling harvests. ...

Once every few months (should be more often I guess), I do a comic based on my EQ1 guild’s latest adventures. You can get the whole thing by visiting our news page at http://crimsoneternity.com, but here’s a taste:

Why would someone want to restart from scratch on the EverQuest progression servers? To be challenged, and to compete. Current content is so hard and tedious and it breaks people. Being the first to gear up and take down Vox and Nagafen - I predict both will be dead within a month - is something achievable and significant. Whereas with current expansions, we could complete Prophecy of Ro tomorrow and nobody would know or care. Now, if we were in a race against three other guilds to be the first to kill Lord Nagafen with bronze armor, fine steel weapons and +5 fire resist rings… wouldn’t that be exciting? Was nobody ever envious of the uberguilds who swept in, coordinating their raid over /ooc, and took on dragons while you were camping LDCs and the stone spider? Wished you were taking on Trakanon instead of sitting the the zone-in to Old Sebilis, looking for a group? ...

Five hours. Multiple trips into the pre-expansion EQ2’s end game zone. And more kindness and generosity than I had any right to expect. And yet I encounter that time and time again in EQ2. I belong to a no-name guild, driftwood they acquired when Eternal Carnage merged with them, and everyone but me left again. I don’t have a base of guildies from which to draw to do quests and raids and stuff, so I rely on the pickup raiders. ...