f13.net

So's I don't muck up other threads with inane ingame crap.

I threw a few totems in the guild bank, please use them. I'm grinding Wyll to make some invis totems, hopefully by next weekend. Need to cure my SK's lack of invis, and you all play SKs :)

Also, a bunch of T1 stuff in the bank doesn't need to be there, especially fuel components (filament). Still some room in there, but I'll clean it out to make room if we need it. I want to dump a few more things you guys might like in as I work up my crafters. Thinking of doing an armorcrafting stint (groan, armorcrafting sucks), because I got a ton of feysteels last week. So I can make some feyiron stuff for you guys, or feysteel if you provide the rares. Catch me online for stats (or lookemup!). I can also make feysteel (for lvl 32, Steel for level 22) longswords, which are nice if you're a sword and shield SK, it's what I'm using right now.

Yes, the T1 stuff can be removed, and T2 mostly, too, I think.  I just stuck them in there for Righ to use when he grinded some crafting.  He might be done or almost done with T2 even.  He zipped through.

Yeah, he did. Ok, no problem, just mentioning it while I was thinking about other stuff.

Oh, I dingered BC to level 12 while doing writs last night. C'mon, level 15!

Running from Freeport to Neriak at level 12 brought back memories of trying to make the Qeynos to Freeport run in EQ1. Tense, exciting. Tend to forget how dangerous zones are when they've greyed out to your main.

SOE fiddled with the mail and bank so, depending on which mod you use (if you do), there might be a couple of files you need to either update or delete until your mod person updates.  I haven't noticed anything else not working properly.

Since we have such a huge EQ2 population here, I'll toss out this question. Trag and gimpyone group regularly as a Berserker and Fury (both 31 right now). I've been hanging out with them as a Shadowknight (35), and it's been cool. But my SK is level-locked, and I like playing him that way, the gear and AA is much better and I don't feel pressured to finish quests quickly.

So I figured I would play another character with them. My necro would be ideal but he's my other level-locked 'savor the game' character. So here's some ideas:

Wizard. He's already 30 and dps would probably be a good addition, if a bit one-dimensional.

Illusionist. He's only 18, so needs some levelling. But he's some decent dps and lots of utility with stuns and mez.

Ranger. Level 22. Brings tracking, stealth, run speed (though gimp has sow). Haven't been playing him and planned on making him assassin because I didn't want to have to kite to solo later on. But with a group, the arrows might be cool (and I have a woodcrafter to make them). Decent dps and some utility.

Inquisitor. Melee, plate, and heals. With two plate classes and the ability to let gimp do more dps, it could possibry work. Have to start from scratch (probably delete my bruiser).

I threw this out on the official boards and they say Coercer, Warlock, Dirge or Defiler. So they've been real helpful. Warlock, I'd probably just keep my wizard. Coercer, I'd probably just keep my Illusionist (the coercer forum is grim). Dirge and Defiler sound interesting, but I'm thinking we'd need more dps thought a Defiler's slows might be nice. Dirge would probably annoy me, don't they have to twist songs like a Bard from EQ?

Anyway. Thoughts? Signe won't come outside and play in the rain.  :evil:

I'd go Illy I think.  It would be a serious force multiplier for that group.  Buffs, CC and DPS.  You'd be able to do harder fights faster with less downtime.  The power regen gives the Fury the option of nuking more with less risk of running out of power for heals greatly increasing his contribution.  The ability to handle CC effectively also means that with some skill you guys can do much tougher group content than otherwise.

Wizzie would get you through each fight faster but you wouldn't be able to do as tough a fight and you would have more downtime.  Same with Ranger or Assassin really.

Inqi could be good but that means most of the time either you are the fury is acting as a DPS.  Although the extra heals may help for some tougher fights I don't think it would be as helpful as good CC.

For my 2 coppers. The holy trinity of EQ2 is tank, healer and DPS. I am not saying an enchanter is useless. I do think DPS would be more usefull in more cases. A necro is great DPS without aggro issues and utility. Heal, debuff, off tank with pet. Any of the caster or rogue classes would work for a serving of DPS.

As a side note. You talking about the SK has caused me to roll one. They do rock! A lot of fun for a tank class.

I hate the rain.  I am, however, going to do the betrayal quest with my monk because I've never done it before.  Plus, I'm tired of having to kill guards.  I'll eventually level up Stabby, too, in something other than alchemy.

I say add the wizard for the trio.

I think I have a mystic I'd play there..

Can't really answer that without knowing your group goal. Is it to exp and level as fast as possible? Is it to quest around all over the place and explore the game entirely? Is it to challenge the most difficult content you can and survive?

Each of those questions to me has a different answer.

Exp + fast level = Ranger. Their auto-attack bow damage is awesome and means they burn very little power which means less downtime.

Quest + Exploration = Wizard for ports and such (or do Furys get those too?)

Surviving difficult content = Illusionist - Mez

All three though have some level of DPS though so you probably won't notice a huge difference no matter which way go.

I would say though that another healer or tank would be overkill and not the ideal. But you can make just about any combo or trio work in eq2. Kind of the nice thing about the game.

We tend to do quests all over and have a hard time with some of the more difficult ones, if that helps.

Or I could just keep playing my SK and enjoy questing with you guys before you out-level me while I'm playing Bioshock :P The wiz is already lvl 30, I'd have to get cruising on the illusionist to bring him up to par, but he's also the better solo character.

I can make the full line of t4 armor, hit 39 last night and made myself some decent feysteel revenant stuff.

You can also start killing Orcs in Zek near Deathfist Citadel for Blood Iron Ore (also I think the miners have a chance to drop it too and also any mob in DFC itself).  You can buy the Armor books off the Vendor or get them off drops in DFC.  Anyway it's the first armor set you can use and it's pretty good stuff.  Stat wise its about the same as the lvl 42 Ebon mastercrafted stuff but it's wearable at 37 and it's got a bonus for each piece you wear.  Blood Iron armor should get you to 52 and Cobalt gear in good order.

Also you have to use a special forge in DFC to make the armor but it's pretty easy to get to even for a small group.

http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Deathfist_Armor

Yes, Blood Iron is high on my list of stuff to do. I was soloing in the mines for quests quite a bit, I've got 3 of the ore in the bank (none dropped the night oly, gimpy and I were in there doing my crazy suicide quest style). Saw the books on the vendor, too. DFC is still a bit hairy for our group, but should be doable soon. My SK is pretty durable for a solo character, though I'm sure a full-time dungeon/group SK would have better gear. All Mastercraft/Legendary, at least Adept I on all CAs and spells, though I do need to grab the last couple levels because I've been lazy and focused on adventure.

I thought maybe I'd stop playing EQ2 after I got BioShock, but it's definitely a good game to play before bed and wind down from the adrenaline of BioShock (assuming I don't try any crazy EQ2 stunts, of course).

Having been grouping since the early 30's I'm pretty sure that if you are full Mastercrafted you are better equipped than all but the very few elite twinkies.  Most group orientated people have patchwork bits and peices some great, some meh.  Mastercrafted is equivalent stat wise to legendary (some individual pieces may vary of course).  It's actually really difficult to put together full suits of Legendary armor before the 60's and I don't think I've seen anyone decked out in Fabled that wasn't lvl 70.  The time commitment and resources necessary to get that gear is just way too high when you are out leveling it ever few days/weeks.

Last night my guild decided to go do some lvl 40-50sih Raid x4 stuff (for the AA I guess, I wasn't on when the decision was made) and there was some REALLY nice lvl 40sih Fabled Armor dropping with great stats but NO one does that kind of content at level appropriate times now.  Guilds just aren't set up that way.  All that armor is probably going to end up on the vendor to fund guild repairs for the real raids and other costs.  What I am saying is that you are as kitted out as anyone at a comparable level and probably much better than most.

Really, it's easier to slack in your gear at the mid-levels if you group a lot simply because other people in the group will compensate for your deficiencies.  I agree that a focused group trying to push the limits of what content they can do will probably be among the best equipped for their levels but I don't think there are too many of those around.

Exactly. As a dedicated soloer, this is one of the reasons I keep myself level-locked (well, combat exp turned off, I still level at a decent clip imo). Doing quests, getting AA and exploring the decent quantity of middle-level content are the others.

Most people rush to the top and then everything is camped to hell and crowded, there's raid crap to deal with (which I never will), so you have a handful of instances and wait for the next expansion...which will be camped to hell except for a handful of instances. I get to check out all kinds of stuff and the worst I have to deal with is a group of twinked out alts on an off-raid night zerging the nameds in a shared dungeon (which I can't do anyway unless oly+gimp are around).

Actually, the worst thing, people-wise, I have to deal with is trying to harvest in a popular area, as level 70s cherry pick all the stone nodes :)

It's a very relaxing way to play, I find. Being kitted out to take on solo challenges better is a definite bonus, last night I was fighting all 38-40 stuff, the 39 ^ were a bit of a struggle (resists and goddamned healer mobs) and I didn't try any ^^ because I struggle with them and I was just playing to relax (I've killed a few white ^^ but never a yellow ^^). I'm in absolutely no rush to level, at times I wish I weren't getting quest xp, I levelled from 31 to 35 on just quest exp in a month and I've only just begun enchanted lands (I was up on the backside of EL, got two quests that gave me a total of 3.5gp, nice to finally see yellow on the quest rewards). I've done about half of Zek, most of Nektulos, skipped a lot of TS because I was outlevelling it.

Note: I am very disappointed the Guardian's Hoo'Loh hat.  That is all.

I'll probably quest for the Assassin Hoo'Loh hat but there is little chance I will use it.  I plan on doing the relic armor at 67 (no brainer there unless I am missing something, great stats and easy to get) and then grouping with the guildies for the legendary set and raiding with the guild for the Fabled (though Kunark will probably be out by then which will change plans).  I can't see losing the set bonus of the relic and others for a hat with the same graphic but different colors.

Dinged 61 last night, got my Mastercrafted ready for 62 (hopefully by this weekend).  The wealth of 60+ content is a little intimidating actually, not sure where to focus my efforts.

Wait... Relic is easy to get now? I haven't done much t7 since I stopped raiding back before EoF but Relic used to be a rare drop in t7 raid instances (Labs, Lyceum, etc...) Or are you saying that the old KoS raids are just easy now? I can see that but a raid is still a raid.

Or did they change Relic entirely now and put it somewhere else?

The gems drop on Sanctum of the Scaleborn off common heroic mobs for sure, I received several on Sunday alone.  A quick check of the broker afterwards showed me that getting enough gems for the full kit would only be about 2-3 pp all told.  You need three of each one specified by your archtype, right?

I am possibly misunderstanding this and there may be two separate types of gems with the same exact name but I'm kind of doubting that.  I used the gem names from eq2i for my broker search.  YMMV based on server, class and etc...

Picked up my 62 set at 60 as incentive, but have found it tough going getting to 61.  Where is this magical content?  Loping Plains and Barren Sky?  I guess I'm trying to save that as it seems like the end of solo stuff.  You are probably talking about all of the group stuff, though.

Seems to me everyone talks about soloing the Nest, whatever that is. Like "if you know how to play your class well, you can solo the Nest." Several of the class forums talk about it, sounds like a decent solo place with 5 nameds? Well, decent meaning hard as hell, you'll need gear and an optimized build and know how to play the class to the fullest. But that's the kind of solo challenge I hope to do in five years when I hit 70. Or 80, when it's trivialized, I guess. Probably 90 by then.

Re: relic gems

According to EQ2 Loot DB the gems, at least the ones I need, drop from common mobs in SoS and Bonemire as well as the Raid Instances:
a Scaleborn acolyte (Sanctum of the Scaleborn)
a Scaleborn reaver (Sanctum of the Scaleborn)
a Scaleborn ritualist (Sanctum of the Scaleborn)
a Scaleborn warrior (Sanctum of the Scaleborn)
a silent sentinel (Sanctum of the Scaleborn)
a Vornerus hiveward (The Bonemire)
a Vornerus prowler (The Bonemire)
a watchful custodian (Sanctum of the Scaleborn)

Re: 60+ content

Yes, I am referring to group content.  There is oodles of it, numerous dungeons and instances and etc...

Relic armor is high-end KoS armor that is created from mob drops. Players must obtain the base no trade armor in KoS raid zones (Lyceum, Vyemm's Lab, Deathtoll), then bring the piece(s) plus the appropriate dropped (tradeable) gems to Keortor Talyse in Solusek's Eye for final creation.

Much easier to get the legendary sets from the group EoF instances (Obelisk of Light, Crypt of Valdoon, etc.), The EoF legendary set is comparable, if not better, than the KoS Relic Gear.

OK, I thought there was something I was misunderstanding there.  It seemed way too easy.

Ahh yeah. The gem drops are the easy part. The hard part is getting the pattern which is also part of the turn-in. Back when I was raiding there would be maybe 1 or 2 pattern drops per 24-man raid, which at the time each raid was about 2 hours. Most of those zones can probably be completed in an hour or less now by the EoF T7 raid guilds.


Thought maybe they changed the patterns to be easier to get or removed them all together.

Back in the day, you could send a small raid force (12-man) into Labs and clear trash mobs near the entrance to farm for relic patterns...as long as you didn't kill a named, you could go in and out of the instance.  The patterns come in generic cloth, leather, chain, and plate for various armour parts.

Like I said though, at 67 you could get much better armour from the EoF group instances.  You at least have a 1 and 6 chance of getting a Legendary piece, and most take no more than an hour...except for unrest, but I assume groups have that down to a 2-hour fine science.  These EoF instances (actually very well done) are much more fun than a raid anyways.

Yeah, i was wondering why every so often someone in guild chat would go, "Glove Boss up in Unrest!" or whatever when the Relic Stuff seemed easier and almost equivalent.  Recently some of the people in my guild have been whining that there aren't enough guild pug's for the EoF stuff because so many of the upper levels have full sets already.  Gloves seem to be the ones everyone is stuck on.

The guild does do labs trash runs pretty often also (once a week or more) so maybe it will go pretty smoothly.

Obelisk of Blight - Boots
Castle Mistmoore - Legs
Crypt of Valdoon - Forearms
Mistmore Catacombs - Shoulders
Kaladim Ring Event - Gloves
Estate of Unrest - Chest/Helmet

All very good areas, catacombs and kaladim being the only non-instances (I think).  You should definitely check out Estate of Unrest, easily the best instance out there for scripting and overall experience.

Most would argue that the Relic Armour or the Class Specific KOS Fabled are much better than the EoF Legendary, but it isn't much better and definitely not worth the effort - especially with Kunark on the horizon.

That's what I was talking about the almost intimidating wealth of 60+ content.  There are also 4 or 5 or more Kingdom of Sky areas AND several places in Desert of Flames that are good at that level.

That said I have an illness because I want to grind up for 'The Ebon Dragon" title for my toon :-(

Yeah, there is definitely alot of 60+ content with KoS and EoF out...but most of the instances in EoF can be done in an hour.  KoS not so much, nest runs are under an hour easy though.  I forgot about Fallen Dynasty, but really the whole pack is ho-hum.

"Ebon Dragon", is that one of the KoS Faction titles from the monk orders?

Yeah, if you are Freeport/Neriak aligned when you finish the monk quest line in Pillars of Flame you get the title the Ebon Dragon, if you are Qeynos/Kelethin you get the Jade Tiger.  The problem is that there is a pause in the quests where you have to grind faction at 100 points a kill for several hundred heroic mob kills.  it's a shitty time sink but it does mean that very few people have the title.

I'm one quest away from Nybright Benefactor, which I could care less about, and about 7000 kills from Orc Slayer which is a relief that I am not as much a catass as some.

I tried to get the Jade Tiger title, but I came up a bit short.  I just remember some type of fish that was incredibly annoying to hunt, so I finally decided it wasn't worth it.  Try getting the Fallen Dynasty 'Golden Sun" title, it is fuckin crazy one to get as well.

Yeah, those stupid fish.  You can work around that part though.  The quest gives you several random mobs to hunt every time you get it.  Just delete it and get it again until you have a set without those fish.  The part I'm talking about that is after that, you have to grind something like 50,000 faction points at 100 points a kill against 55+ heroics.  Good luck getting a group to help you.

Golden Sun you have to do raids over and over again to get pebbles or something right?  Yeah, I didn't even consider it.  I've only seen 1 person ever with Golden Sun as their title (level 70, exile, with full EoF Fabled...  I.e. uber catass), I've seen a couple of Jade Tigers/Ebon Dragons though.

Also, the Wurmslayer HQ (A Thorn of Old) has never been done on my server.  That would be cool to get 'firsts' on, bit of a pain in the ass though.

Card game hotfix broke EQ2. 

Dumbasses.

Which KoS instances take over an hour? Halls of Fate and vaults are the only ones I can think of that'll take over an hour with a pickup group. HoF with a good group maybe an hour 15. Dev of the Devourer is pretty short, an average pickup group should be able to crank it out under an hour. Nest can be done in 30-45 minutes, think my record there was 20 minutes in a 3-man group (tank & healer were fully raid geared and I was dps fully mastered with kos raid weaps but not much armor). And it's been a while since I've run Blackscale but I thought that one was pretty short as well.

You may ask yourself: "What does this have to do with Bat Country?"

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was...

And you may ask yourself, "How did I get here?"

Ok, so I don't have a whole lot of experience doing dungeons, fighting anything more than the occasional ^^^ heroic. Since I'm kind of blocked from getting blood iron ore armor (which reminds me...I can make Deathfist armor (lvl 37), hit lvl40 armorer, just need your plans and materials...and an escort to the forge!), I thought I'd take a page from Chorulle's book and go hit some low-level instances for some drops (the alts...they are hungry!). I picked Crushbone, because it's grey to green, with the higher end being lvl28, I'm level 37. A typical fight with a 28 ^^^ will leave me with 90-100% health, 50% power. I was taking down pairs of ^^ ending with a bit more power loss, maybe 30-40% power at the end of the fight.

I was having real problems with multiples and respawns. If there were 2 ^^^s in an encounter, I usually had to feign it off. Not having monk feign, then I'd have to wait 2.5min to get feign up again to try it over. I'm pretty sure the monk method makes heavy use of feign to kill the adds first, however I can only do this once realistically. And then the respawn kicks in if I wait to have it up again. I was careful and only died once to accidental aggro (never been in there before, guy was hiding around a corner on me), but I had to pass up a couple nameds that were up because they were paired with ^^^. I guess I could've feigned after taking out the add, but respawn was hounding my heels (particularly wanderers).

I'm kitted out in mastercrafted/legendary, with at least Adept I (Master II Harm Touch and lifetap proc, a couple  Adept IIIs). Got some +10str totems (I pull with their slow effect if possible). I also have a racial hide that's on a 5 minute timer, which can seem forever in a dungeon. I've got some totems for regen, so it's not a /huge/ problem, also have lvl 40 provie food.

Any tips to help me solo in dungeons, fighting Heroics? I definitely feel pretty whupass for my level, I was taking on lots of solo stuff (no v arrow) four levels higher, and I've taken down a -1 level overland ^^^ Heroic, as I said the greenies aren't a big problem aside from power drain. Just some trouble moving fast enough and the big problem of linked ^^^ encounters.

You can run away?

No being facetious but having a character that doesn't have feign death and also can't take to much pounding has taught me to kill off the attendants, run off the named and then come back for him or, situationally, evac and come back.  Takes a bit of effort and some prep but it's generally doable.  You might also be able to supplement your FD with the tinkered one to speed things up.

But yeah, in my experience it's kill off the adds and reset the encounter so that you can fight the named solo.

Can't run away in dungeons, tried that running out of CB last night. Chased me all the way up (and killed me), and that was only the three greens between where I was and the greyed out mobs. Can't imagine any more, I'd be dead in steps.

Did you yell to break the encounter and get full speed and full health regen?  Against -9 green^^^s with you in good plate I would expect you to regen health even while being hit.  Make sure you are using the totems with health regen would be the only other thing I would suggest.  You can also get evac clickies and emergency health potions.

D'oh. Need to remacro that, I took it off when I was a newbler and have been typing it in while autorunning :P But it still isn't a solution, as I would then have to make it all the way back to the broken encounter again after running away, through a crowded dungeon.

Oh well, I guess I just suck and will stick to overland hunting unless anyone else has some  input? I miss the old feign on my necro from EQ, maybe I should roll a monk, though I do like my SK alot.

I dunno man.  Maybe some invis totems?  Feign and Invis are about the only things anyone gets.  I guess enchanters can mez and mem-wipe and charm?

Mostly I just don't go after nameds in dungeons when solo.  That you can get most of the way there at all is pretty good to me.  Death and a couple of failures isn't that much of a penalty though, I say just stick it out and say some you can get and some you can't.

I've never done Crushbone but I would think areas of RoV and some portions of Stormhold should be in your range.

I will most likely show up sometime in november, when this rush of new games finally dies down. Though I may play the night Halo 3 comes out for shits and giggles.

Just made my first batch of SoW totems last night, so invis/stealth totems are a little ways off, I've exhausted my woodcrafter's vitality bonus. BC is doing pretty good with crafting, 3 characters just broke into T5 (Olyndar, Wyll and Vith; alchemy, woodcrafting, and armoring, respectively...and my butt still hurts from the armoring grind, hard metals are teh debil). Also dinged BC to 15, now just need to find 5pp to customize the cloaks and 9pp for a 40% horse...

I logged into CB last night, as it's where I logged out. I could probably wiggle down and grab the first green named, I was kind of in a hurry since I only had a few minutes to play. Tried to totem pull him through the room and picked up an add, my bad for rushing. Feigned him off. Waited for feign to recycle, took out the door guard who had respawned, snuck around the corner to pull the add mob and a cast had spawned...woopsie. Aggroed him, didn't feel like fighting him, so I verified that at least in CB, even if you break the encounter and sprint, they will chase you to the zone exit. Luckily everything was grey and he was a wimpy mob.

I guess I just need to get a better feel for feign timing, and get around to those invis totems (which have been my priority for some time now). Like I said, I'm almost there...if I had Chorulle's (monk) feign...at least my feign is AA'd down to 2.5min timer from 5 minutes. My feign is 74%, sure doesn't feel like it, though. So glad I took the racial hide, too, even if it's a 5min timer. Comes in very handy. Also need to get that DFC armor made, just need an escort into the forge to babysit me while I pound out six suits of armor. The extra mit should help out, even if the set bonus is wimpy (+1% crit, I'm getting about +8% per AA right now).

If you want to cheese it add 'Reshe' to your friends list and send a tell and next time you see me on I'll help you clear to the forge.  You wont get xp for it but you can't have everything.

I play with combat experience turned off. It's very liberating, I'm more focused on doing stuff than min/maxing experience...and I level too fast anyway! I'd appreciate the help in the forge, I need the gear upgrade imo, tired of lvl 32 armor :) I'll keep an eye out for you.

I do need the last bit of blood iron ore (I have 5 of 6 needed for set), I'll just buy it if I don't have it when you're on. I've only scouted from the front door to the forge, is there an access quest for the back door?

There used to be, I think.  Don't need it anymore.  Back door is pretty easy, just zone in and climb the rope and work your way to the forge.  There are critters in the moat though and a named (38^^^ I think, the Sludge Cleaner) that wanders near the back door once you are inside.

EQ2 is so seriously fucked up now.  The servers went down early this afternoon, Oasis is still down, but I wouldn't bother logging in to any server tonight.  They've been rolled back to 7 AM this morning.   Every time you zone you get an AA... yay?  It's not like you're going to get to keep them.  When you complete an instanced quest, it updates and then un-updates when you zone out.  I'm not entirely sure about regular quests.  Stuff you gather for collection quests disappear when you zone, too.  I heard it's all because of the card game.  I don't even like card games! 

Dammit.

What?? OMG the game was getting sweet and I am looking at a long weekend with a wiz, sk, and fury that I am really liking. I have been playing the card game. I think I will like it if I ever get on top of it. I guess this is my bioshock week end then. Crap, fricking sony.

All servers are up now.  The patch notes claim that it wasn't related to the card game but, eh, whatever.  For a game at this level of maturity to be down pretty much all Friday is highly unusual.  Really, there has hardly been any downtime (maybe none?), in my experience, since I start playing again.

People are saying it was related to cloaks or something now.  Thing is, the last few little updates have been the card game.  I guess we all assumed.  I'm still assuming. 

Ironically, the reason for the friday hotfix (which we try to avoid doing, exactly because of potential like what occurred) was to fix a problem that caused a few characters to get into a state where they would crash the zone they were trying to log into.  The number of characters would have grown over the long weekend, hence the time pressure on getting the fix out.

Completely unrelated to LON.  One thing I like about the setup that we have with the Denver studio is that their entire game (client and server) can be updated while EQ and EQ2 are running, even though they partially share our patchers.  Unless it's an integration issue, they can update at will with no downtime on EQ/EQ2 folks.

- Scott

Thanks for the update, Scott. I'm excited for the card game even if I can't play(still no 720p support, LoN tech forum says they're working on it), but even I have to groan when there's a hotfix related to it. So I can see where the grumbling is coming from.

I only experienced a few hours of Oasis downtime, glad I had that old launch character left on LDL that I can't stand to delete because he's got the cheesy launch jboots (10% run, no stats). Wish you could reclaim if you delete the character.

Lesson learned a long time ago: always roll an alt on another server. CoH used to do that now and again, and I'd always have a backup to go play.

I am liking the card game. As in I am 5000 times better up to the point that I suck. But I am liking it. Lots of depth with out the goofy mechanics of MTG. Lots of thinking about card interaction. Head scracticing over Deck building. A thought hits you at work and you scribble down notes kinda of a thing. I am liking it. It might go live tomorrow. Eating food and drink while you are learing kinda blows goats. I am looking forward to launch.

Some notes. Still unable to play LoN. I think the dev's name was Scarlach that said they were working on 720p support. Probably seems like a small issue, but when you can't play due to it, it's a big issue to you.

I'm at 40 armorcrafting. Which means I can make the deathfist armor if you guys can provide the books and materials. After I get more crafters into T5 I can probably do the materials except for the blood iron and fulginate, because until they change something about hard metals, it's a bitch to get enough to level an armorcrafter.

Just made my DFC set last night (thanks for the escort service Murgos...wait that, sounded wrong), now I'm all shiny. Armor's a bit busy for me but the bump in mitigation helped me tank a heroic quest that's been on the rolls for a while, though I did use Chorulle's feign technique to thin out the encounter. Had an audience show up (it was in a public traffic area, I was worried about someone cherry-picking the named for AA while I was recouping after feign), that was kind of cool. Didn't even use harm touch! Shadowknights are cool.

Sky's hot for my toon.

Save your plat and maybe you'll get some cyb0rz.   :-D

Kinda cool checking out other characters your level on your server with EQ2players.com. Turns out I have the most hp and power of all SKs my level. A few have some nicer gear mostly due to my neglect of my jeweler alt (and saving ruthenium for spells rather than jewelry). Oddly, my Attack rating is inexplicably lower than a few of them, though my Str is higher. Dunno.

Some REAL ghetto outfits out there, some people with no earrings at level 37? Some with no charm slot items (though obviously some were harvesting with tools, etc). I'm surprised how few use a bow, and how crappy most of the bows were. Only one I can recall using a quiver!

Some good ideas for upgrades, too. Going to grab some jewelry and a better shield...and have ye olde Wyll craft me a wand, decent crushing dmg and I've been looking for a decent beater for crushing skill. Seems a feysteel 1h axe beats out my (old!) feysteel long sword by a little margin for dps. Odd.

The single worst character had the same amount of playtime as my SK, but with utter shit gear. And I've taken pretty much as long as one can realistically take to level in EQ2 if you're actively playing, so I can get some quests and gear done...definitely sheds some light on posts I read about really crappy SK tanks. Fairly gear-dependent class, and then throw in a decent AA build...turns out I'm in pretty good shape after all, despite not having fabled gear or a sugar daddy (and on par or better than a few of those I saw).

Evidence of playstyle differences.  If I'm leveling a character, I rarely get good gear because I often level at a rate that renders my gear as obsolete a day or two after I get it.  Also most MMOG players have very little knowledge of game mechanics.  If you talk to the general gaming population, you'll find that many have never given the mechanics of the game a second thought.  They just like to log on, chat, and kill some stuff. 

I've mentioned a few times that I'm in no race to the end. There's a lot of content for early and mid levels that people rush past, then gripe about the lack of content at the end. I guess if you're main interest is raiding I could understand, but for solo-oriented players, rushing to the end is self-defeating. I have combat experience turned off, I even stopped playing my SK for a few days until I could get this past armor upgrade.

Speaking of mechanics, I'm wondering how to stat up my wizard, who I turned combat exp on for. He'll move quicker, but I still want to gear him up while I can. He's over 200 int right now, and I've heard people say after the soft cap it's better to get +mana or focus on other stats. Anyone know how the soft cap is calculated? When I first logged in he had a bunch of Sta gear because he was tanking stuff now and again using coldshield, but I hooked him up with more int stuff for spell damage.

http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/news_ff.vm?FeatureName=combatchanges&section=development#CharacterAttributes

I don't think anyone in Bat Country races for anything.  The most catassing I've seen is a few guildies who were grinding out guild points because they want more space or something.  People will group if you want them to but no one is fussed about it and they're quite happy to solo or craft.  We're all supreme foozles because we've all know each other so every one has access to every thing.  We're so laid back we're nearly dead.  We're building up a nice group, too.  Chorulle is there now and Artificial Kid joined not so long ago.  Righ has been off all games for a few weeks but he'll be back eventually... or so he says.  I've given up CoX (shuddup you!) for a while because I'm having a better time in EQ2.  But then, I can only play CoX for a couple of months and then need to take long breaks... it's the way I've always played it. 

We are on Oasis.  JOIN US AND WE WILL MOSTLY IGNORE YOU!

I'm on the trailing end of a 2 month stint in CoH as well.  I may come back to EQ2 and join you guys for a month or two since I miss being ignored.  I miss grabbing those ! and ?.

Well, most of us are supreme foozles because we've been posting here for years. Folks like Falwell, who are new, go on probation. Don't feel bad, it's only because you're new, not because you're not cool. We've had to kick the last two people on probation, though :( I doubt Falwell will be in that category, you seem cool if a bit vulgar at times :P

Thanks for the info, Murgos. Looks like he's right about where he needs to be with Int, so I'll bring up some other stats. Going to poke my head into the class boards to see what's good (I'm fairly resistant to the official board weenies). Either go with more Sta for health, Agi for avoidance or Wis for resists, I'd imagine. The SK, being a hybrid and needing Str and Int (and Sta, really) is a lot tougher. At 37, he's Str 153, Agi 88, Sta 114, Int 138, Wis 40 (though his resists are not too bad thanks to gear). 2829 health/1850 power without food/drink buffs (str/int/sta), and I'm not sure eq2players adds in buffs, either. So he's doing good for health/power even with suboptimal stats.

Tragny and gimpyone are regulars, but left coasters so they play late most times I see them, mid-30s and they often duo together. I try to join them when I can. AK is still kinda low, but we have alts in his range if he ever needs to group. Cho never needs to group because he's the uber god of EQ2 (j/k, he does rock but I've helped him on some quests). Not the big grouping guild, but we're always there to help if you need some. Send Wyll the materials and some coins to cover fuel and I'll grind out SoW totems for you, should have invis totems in a couple weeks. We're crafty!

I officially adopted EQ2 as my only mmo this summer. Might go back to CoX for a fun stint, but it always wears off way too quick. Wish the combat style and flying and whatnot were the way it worked in EQ2!

Well, I'll weigh in as well, my playtime has been severely curtailed because of the missus and work (goddamn phone) but I will lend any of my toons if you guys need extra damage dealt. Just let me know a few hours ahead of time.

Got a LoN booster drop from a lvl 41 mosquito. Darn TCG-playing skeeters! Since I can't play the game right now due to bugs, and the market is silly, I sold it for 12pp, which is like 3x as much plat as I had. More than I've had with all my characters combined. Good deal.

I'll be in Vermont this week, see you next weekend.

I ran through the LoN tutorial this weekend and I find the game intriguing. I just don't know why I would play it and not EQ2 if I had time to play anything. Once the game can be played outside the EQ2 client, I might be tempted.

I like the split board and quests.
I wish you could play items on quests.
I dislike the limits on abilities and items.
The game is well paced (no mana screw, no stand offs) but that also works against them because there also no moments were your cards line up and you WTFPWN people either.
I like how it gives you a card the first time you win a scenerio.

All in all, I like it, but its still over-priced.

I like it but I've never played any of these kind of card games before, just not my generation, so I have pretty much no clue what I am doing, yet.  The tutorial is ok but I'm going to have to play quite a bit of it before I really figure out what's going on.

Isn't it free? I was playing yesterday (without a clue really) and I don't remember agreeing to pay for anything. Please tell me I'm not going to get a random bill for something that was marginally enjoyable.

I did a /claim to see what was in there and I got a nice container that reduces the price of my vendored goods by 10% because it cuts the brokerage fee in half, nice.  It was the three year reward so most people here should have it available.

No, there is a store you buy stuff at.

LoN is free for now if you are a EQ2 subscriber. It will be sold separately soo, though, and then I don't think it will be free any more.

No, if you subscribe you get a starter pack.  I'm sure that they would much rather you buy EQ/EQ2 for 40-60 bucks plus expansions and extras and get you hooked on buying boosters than making you pay for LoN which can be safely ignored.

Sure, leave an option for people to play LoN without EQ/EQ2 but I'm 95% sure that LoN as a standalone game isn't the model they are pursuing.  I would guarantee that as time progresses LoN gets incorporated into more and more of SOE's 'stable'.

Not to be a salesman about Legends of Norrath but: the stand alone client is out as of today. It seems to be free. Now saying that I logged in using my station login. But it should be free. I just can not say for sure that it is. There is a practice game option (casual games select a server, join, click practice game) That lets you play with a random deck against another person (no need to buy cards). It is a collectable card game so rares and uncommon are more powerfull cards yadda yadda. I like it as the mechanics are straight forward but complexity and combos are still there.

Instead of combat messages now, I get numbers.  57  41  23  etc.    :|

Cheer up, emo bear.

I figured out what it was.  Somehow, my hit messages changed to the least verbose.

And thanks for caring Emo Elmo.   :heart:

Well, we almost did something last night! :)

Tragny, gimpyone and myself are tentatively (always tentative!) going to try and hit DFC this weekend. I've got about 6 quests there and I'm pretty sure we can do most of them (make sure to repair up first, Trag! ;)).

Another idea would be Hadden's HQ. I'll be lucky not to ding 41 while adventuring in Steamfont this week, so I might need to mentor down. I should also clean up the GBS HQ as that's 30 as well. If we do Hadden's, we'll probably need to load up on some other Nektropos Castle stuff and get access quests and whatnot, I haven't looked too close at that yet. I seem to remember one other HQ that ends up with the end mob for Hadden's, so if we do that we'll probably want to pick up that one and get it to that step.

So, either way, let's decide on something and work to get ready for the weekend so we can spend a couple hours doing some of the tougher bits. Maybe some day Signe will tag along ;)

Be sure to get through to the DFC portion of the the FBSS and SBS HQ's before you do your DFC run.  Knock 'em all out in one go.

DFC is pretty easy mostly, the fight with Fyst at the end is a little tough because he has knock back and you fight on a roof but I found that if you pull him to the nearby stairwell and fight in there you don't have to worry about that.  Also, one of the princes inside DFC has a fear AE, you will want to put your toons into crouch before fighting him so you don't go running off all over the place pulling aggro.  I forget his name but it's the one inside the dining hall.  The only other hard fight in there is the Champion in the arena pit, who also does a knockback, which is a problem because the walls have spikes on them and they can do a lot of damage.  So, the best tactic is to have the tank keep the champs attention on one side of the arena with his back to a wall while everyone else is on the other side using ranged attacks.

Good luck!  You will probably wipe a couple of times but don't let that bother you, doesn't hurt anything but the ego.

Fight Fyst at his throne. The tank has the throne at his back. Done.

What level is Fyst? Not sure we were going to do the whole dungeon. I'm fuzzy on their numbers but at the least it will be our trio of 40 SK, 39 Zerk, 37 Fury unless someone dings beforehand or I forgot a dinggratz. I forget where Signe is, but she'd be ok to go (33 or 34, be orange to red but she wouldn't get trounced if we're careful). I don't think anyone else is in the level range right now, Chorulle just hit 30 last night...but he's also the resident BC Badass so he might feel comfortable poking at reds.

42.
If you guys set a time, I am sure we could scrape up a full team. Also what roles you need.

Ah, I forgot you're back, Taz, sorry. Not used to having so many people around :P Or somewhat around, anyway.

Roles? I don't roll like that. If you want to come, you're welcome. Time, I'm usually around by 11pm until 1am at the latest on a weeknight, as late as I can stand it on weekends (usually 3am). Fiancee is working Saturday so I could be around during the day until 5 or so. I'm eastern time. When I've grouped with those two, it's generally been like midnight to 3am eastern *yawn!*

I'm probably going to have to update the ingame message so Trag and gimp actually read this thread and comment :P

In yet another BC scheduling oopsy, I agreed to work Saturday morning, so I won't be available until 5PM Eastern. Sunday afternoon is best for me, but I can certainly do Saturday night if that's when we can pull the most bodies for carnage. Look forward to getting a chance to group with you Taz.

I'll be around whenever someone aims me.  Unless the incoming freshmen destroy my dorm.

30 is too low for me to do any good at this point, my hit ratio would be complete crap against them.  If you folks had an open spot left and I had some ore I would probably try and hitch a ride to the forge to go ahead and knit some armor (hit 40 tailoring a couple days ago and picked up both of the books).  However, I am a cheap SoB when it comes to stuff like that, so I would rather wait until I can hunt for some of the ore myself rather then buy it all in the AH.  So, perhaps another time when I am in the high 30s.

Might be better to do Nektropos and clean up the HQs there, would be easier to take out the bosses there.

Sunday afternoon? Heretic.

Well, someone asked me to swap shifts with them so it turns out I will be available Saturday morningish until about 2:30 PM Eastern then probably like 1-3AM. I'm certainly all about hitting the HQs so am very down for Nekt Castle, doubly so if it means more crazies from here.

I have been distracted by my new orange pussy.  Sorry.

I can certainly undestand that. Firebush is like that.

I friggin' dinged 41 last night. I only have one darn piece of ebon ore. Gotta get out and get harvesting and then the awful armorcrafting grind. Not sure if armor or weapon is the worst grind, partly because I just know how valuable the stacks of metals are I'm just grinding through with writs. Feyiron was something like 60sp and I'm grinding 5 or 6 per recipe. With loam coming out my pooper I've got so much.

Um...guys...I think I may have joined the wrong guild...

No!  You stay right where you are.  We're not finished with you yet! 

Gimpy: I wasn't ignoring you Sunday, something was messed up with my chat. It kept sending me messages about not being in a broker session or something. I wasn't going to be on long enough to reboot to fix it. Just on dicking around between actual rl activities.

Going to hit 42 soonish, so I'm working up armocrafting again. Really blowing through materials, though, but it's a bit better than when rares were dropping all the time. I had collected a bunch of stuff while questing in Feerrott, but I really miss the little spot in Nektulos where I could just sit and harvest for a couple hours and get it over with, with nobody sweeping through on their carpet grabbing all the metals and roots. A couple decent spots in Feerrott if you don't mind clearing off a bunch of grouped mobs, but the nice thing about the Nektulos spot was eventually the whole mob spawn would end up non-aggro if you only killed the aggro stuff.

Anyway. Should be able to do ebon stuff shortly. I've got 5 pieces of ebon, still need a couple more that I should get while grinding through t5. Guild should be hitting 17 in the next couple days. Let's get the old girl to 20!

Jumped into Everfrost for some quick AA exp and just to check it out. One of the cooler game experiences, swimming through an ocean filled with giant sharks. With the new camera that pulls out further, you can clearly see them all swimming arond you. My fiancee walked in as I was leaving Everfrost and thought it was cool. However, Everfrost, like Lavastorm, is pretty much a group deal. I did a quest in there, but it quickly becomes ^^^ heroic only content. Makes me want to cockpunch the idiots on the official boards (I know...) who bitch about 'nerfing' Antonica, Commonlands and Nektulos. Goddamned shitpiles.

Agreed on all the dipshits on the board. But you know my stance on being able to solo, we're on the same page there.

Anyway, I'm hitting 42 soon as well, PLUS, I need armor and I've got a buttload of leftover cash. If you need financing for your crafting endeavors let me know, I'll throw some more money in the bank.

Sky: No problem, figured you were busy. 

In other news, I'm very busy this quarter academically but I'll do my best to find time to login.  Latin 1, Greek Lyric Poetry, and doing research for my senior thesis which is something involving disabilities in the classical era.

Signe, the monk lived. Decided to stick with the human monk I had as a tailor drone, he's pretty cool and I can always betray later. Wanted an iksar bruiser (and not just to copy Cho, my 'main alt' on EQ1 was iksar monk) but with a little tweaking to the appearance my human isn't too bad (bald, handlebar mustache, dark yellow complexion). So...yay, another alt to level 20!

Cho, I was so correct. Of course, I wish I had the survivability and mitigation of my SK at times. I am not used to not replenishing my health that it's tough to gauge fights. But...the brawler FD is SOOOO much better. Night and Day. The SK/Necro version's timer makes it at best a one-shot death avoider. The brawler version is the amazing, let's split up this group of bad guys or just generally tool around not worrying about aggro version. Can't wait to get a bit better % on it (61% but it caps at 66% so I didn't blow a lot on the Master; my SK has like 78% or summat)...but the reuse means it's no big deal as long as I don't use it like the SK's, as a last ditch. Leave enough time to try a couple times :)

Working on mastering clearing off lower-con adds before taking out the name. If the SK could do FD like that, it would be the perfect class. Can't have that!

Hmm, perhaps I'll have to mess around with my Ratonga Brawler some more. I created him on a whim (named Morsel) and only played him for one night. I'm sure it's not the min/max awesome race/class combo, but I don't much care about that. I've got a rat with an eye patch and a mean left hook. ;)

I love my little rat girl SK.  She has an eye patch, too.  If we hang out together we could actually muster up some peripheral vision!   :lol:

There must've been some serious raiding going on, or a guild cleared out its bank, or something...I was just able to snag like 10 masters for a couple pp. Still need to get some t5 jewelry, but I kitted out in t4 stuff, also got a decentish weapon and shield. Tired of the old tower shield, I got a nice little fabled kite shield that looks cool. The weapon is just a crafted Ebon Voulge, rated 1 lower than the cedar cudgel I had, but it looks way cooler. Also, needed to work piercing. With the AA +melee crits I'm working on, autoattack dmg is getting better.

So now I've got like 12 masters (incl Master II choice), to be 13 at 44. So happy I got that LoN booster pack (still can't play LoN). I try to level slowly, so they should keep me in good stead through t5.

I would like to see about working on some HQs at some point, especially now that Cho is entering the BC sweet spot. We're kind of melee heavy, though. 2 SKs, a Bruiser, a Berserker and a Fury. And all you fuckers will probably outlevel me soon enough...I just had a headstart.

I won't out level you.  I promise.  We just bought Lister his own kitten.  She's a lovely black short hair named Magenta.  She's a month older than him and an attention slut.  Between the constant kitten drama and my new obsession with scrubbing two of the bathrooms (litter areas) everyday, vacuuming up hair and my own personal ever-wending insanity, I've been... umm... busy.  Shortly we'll be having poor Lister's manhood snipped so I expect more drama and devastation.

(http://www.sitcom.co.uk/red_dwarf/graphics/char_lister.jpg)                     (http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g222/SociallyAcceptedSuicide/rhps_025MagentaTimeWarp.jpg)

More accurate pics another time.  I need a nap.

I'll be playing in December.  Hope you guys are having fun though.

I haven't been playing very much, though I play the beta now and then.  We've been a wee bit busy and I've been having mild attacks of insanity.  At least I assume it's insanity since I've been getting  more odd looks than usual.

Beta? Que?

It's the one for the new expansion.  Oh no.  I've said too much.   :-(  I set it up.   :nda:  Anyway, I haven't really been playing that, either.  Maybe Halloween stuff will motivate me since I wasn't there last year.  I thought the CoX Halloween stuff started today but it disappointed me.  I'm bitter. 

I didn't sign up for the beta - I'll play it when it's released imo. Not sure how far the NDA goes, have they mentioned what classes Sarnak can be?

Ah. There were sign-ups. Well, it's not like I would have been a diligent tester anyhow so, yeah, with release just around the corner, I'll wait it out. Should be a fun expansion. New starting zones are always a refreshing treat.

The one aspect of RoK that I am curious about as well.  If they do limit Sarnak to certain classes it would be the first race to be in that situation.  Even though Sarnak are supposed to be a neutral race I would imagine they will not be that strict and give people a way to play as any class (either at the start or via betrayal)

Eh, I forget about betrayal. I will probably roll a shadowknight or bruiser (miniCho).

Update: Well, nobody answered my tech support post last week and this week the SD area is dealing with the fires. So it's been a solid week I've basically been unable to play EQ2. One other person chimed into my thread and said they also have issues with 1280x720, and that it definitely is due to GU39. So I don't really see a resolution happening any time soon, if I don't hear something by tomorrow, I'm cleaning out my mail queues and shutting down my account until I hear it's fixed.

I even tried PMing Grimmy directly :(

Noooooooooooo!  I was depending on you to be there after my break which probably ends this weekend!  You're my pal!

:(

Trick or Treat?

I was on for a few minutes cleaning up inventories and I ran the trick or treat/hunted house missions, quick and easy. Also ran the newest kunark mission, which seemed to have no rewards besides experience.

Well, checking my account page, it just charged. So I'll be around for another month anyway  :| As I mentioned in the last post, I can do some rudimentary stuff, got all the masks for Vith (I think hatchet is my favorite). Really wish I could ever hear fucking boo from CS on my fucking problem though. I'm working up to a slow simmer on this topic.

Also starting to understand some crafter's frustration with the broker system. Finally found a decent armor niche to make some money, in fulginate gussets. The DFC armor doesn't have gussets, so they've been selling like hotcakes at Aperture, at 5-6gp/pop. Now there are three or four people charging 1gp/ea. It's hard to believe there's any economy at all with the rampant undercutting, I'll undercut by a little but try not to cave in the pricing on a given item. Some people, they just dump it for less than it costs to make it, I don't understand.

Call them up on the phone and DEMAND attention!!!

Try this.  Looks like some meddling bastard is trying to help:  http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=387525#4395096

Attention gained, issue slated for resolution, Sky completely satisfied. I stand behind Spongebob sticky notes. Things written on them do not get ignored!!

I really didn't want to poke Hartsman (or that crazy Gallenite cad), Kunark and fires and whatnot. At least I kept my angry young (?) man posts to f13 where they belong ;)

Hugfest over, now make me some damn armor =P

Yeah! What he said.


But seriously, glad to hear you're staying, even if I am rarely on at the same times.

:oh_i_see:

Just let me know what kind of armor you need and get together the materials.

Chorulle hooked me up last time I was on. I will be needing an upgrade in about 5 or 6 levels though, so I'll start gathering the materials and will drop you a line when I get everything together. Hell, if I catch up to you in the next month, maybe I can even group with you. :)

Wootzorz. I call it the "Sky hotfix". :)

Yay!   :-)

I'm taking a HG:L and console break from MMORPGs right now but I'll be getting the new expansion so... well... so there you have it.

How active is Bat Country right now? I am downloadiing the patchy bits as I just bought the game for the first time and I don't know anyone playing it.

Bat Country is never active.

Year 4 vet rewards are in. Fun little shapechange into a voodoo doll. Hilarious when he sits down. New title (The Zealous) and 55% exp potions (trades + combat). Treasure chest for -25% rent reduction (which is nice since I recently moved into the Neriak 3-roomer which is 3gp or so).

Got another LoN drop. Redeemed it even though LoN isn't working properly (still) for me inside EQ2. Works enough to redeem, so I tried it so maybe I'd get an item drop. Got a potion for +50% AA experience. Kind of a head-scratcher, imo. Am I supposed to save up quests completions and do them all at once? I mean, how much AA exp does a 40+ character normally get in a half hour?

Maybe I shoulda sold the pack. Odd item.

Shoulda sold it!  It's for max level chars - once there, xp earned turns into AA.

Oh, I shoulda known it was for the target audience of the game. I forget how mmo hates me.

Yes. The four year rewards were quite fun, I thought. I've been running around as a voodoo doll ever since claiming that. He squeals when he gets hit. Heh. Anyhow, I am still having a great time and am glad I came back. The winback promos usually don't get me, but giving me all the expansions and such up to date right before a new expansion is marketing genius. Props to the person at SOE who thought that one up.

School is almost over for the quarter so once I get my power supply issues fixed and Dec 14th rescues me from writing my Senior Thesis, I'll be around. :pedobear:

I can't even get motivated to wait for Frostfell.  I just don't feel like doing it again.  It's mostly the same as last year's, from what I understand.  I might do Xmas with WoW this year.  I'm canceling for now so if anyone wants to boot me from the guild as payback, although there's no reason to anymore because they removed that crappy guild junk, go ahead.  I'll forgive you.  I deserve it.

(http://www.terranuts.com/forums/images/smilies/standcorner.gif)

Does anyone here play actively? If so, which server are you on? I've come back to EQ2 with a necro and a coercer.

I'm active on Crushbone, couple of hours a night.

I'm probably the biggest eq2 catass here. I play just about nightly on The Bazaar server.

I'm fairly active as well on AB. Raided Deathtoll last night, was pretty fun.

I play a Coercer on Oasis about once per week for a couple hours. However, that is probably not as active as you meant.

I am playing actively on Oasis, but not in Bat Country.

I'm on Oasis, actually in Bat Country.

I'm on Oasis, in Bat Country, almost as active as Soukyan and I canceled as of the 22nd but might extend if there's new stuff or some more cool drama or something. 

I am in a good family guild on Perma. If you are 70+ and looking for a home, PM me. We raided KoS and it looks like we might skip EoF raids for the most part.

I have 2 characters on Oasis

• Runinfear, Gnome Necro Level 8
• Foenhardt, Woodelf Shaman Level 1

and

3 on Nafagen (PvP server)

• Malevilor, Erudite Coercer Level 8
• Weilyn, Human Monk Level 7
• Sikaarsk, Iksar Shadowknight Level 7

Anyone is welcome to message me anytime. I'll be trying to find people on Oasis, but I love pvp so I might just hang on Nafagen.

I made a fruitcake.

You know people will just re-wrap it and give it to someone else.  They'll do this for years.  No one will actually eat it.

I think it's for throwing at people.  :awesome_for_real:

Hit up Sinking Sands for the first time last night. Seems aimed a bit higher than I am at level 44 (like I can't harvest until 46, carpet vendor ignores me, etc).

Any caveats to look out for? Anything I should do in certain orders or be sure not to miss?

Um, don't think so. I finished up here pretty much, didn't know what faction to go with so I just picked blades.

The only thing to pay attention to is faction. I would take a quick peak at the ring of fate quest on one of the spoiler sites. If that looks like something you want to do (lots of solo but ends each segment w/ heroic) then Blades is probably the best faction to start with. Don't do any of the Truth or Coin quests or you will lose faction with Blades.

If you don't feel like doing the Ring of Fate then taking all 3 faction quests at once is a good way to level up, get some AA's, and get some coin. You can repeat them indefinitely and there is a good bit of cross-over between all 3 quests which makes it pretty quick to do them.

Other than that you have I think 4 solo quest chains to work on there just in SS before you get sent to PoF.

44 is kind of on the low side of things. 46 is probably the best time to start there as a solo player.

44 is actually a good time to hit RunnyEye if you haven't done that yet as even though it is heroic content at 44 you should be able to solo just about the entire zone other than maybe the instances at the end. There's a good 8-10 quests to work on in there.

Eh, Sinking Sands isn't bad at all at 44, and I dingered 45, dammit. The annoying part seems to be the heroic mobs (only ^ that I saw, but wtf) in the city, tied to factions.

At times the Heroic cockblocking gets tiring. You can go through a whole series of quests just to get fucked over at the end. It's not too bad if you get used to the fact you need to research stuff on spoiler sites and  then do it eight or ten levels after the rewards are worth anything  :roll:

I could take heroic ^s, maaybe a fighter mob ^^ or a caster if I can resist him long enough to crank out the dps which are a little slow on SKs. ^^^ stuff is pretty brutal anywhere near my level, though. The main problem I seem to have tackling heroic stuff is blowing through power, the respawn gets me. It's a LOT better now that the SK feign lasts for hours like the brawler fd, before that the respawn would always swamp me. Now I'm a lot more confident about taking on heroic stuff (I practiced kerpwning WC with a level 22 monk ala Chorulle, made me a better SK).

Anyway, playing my wizard a little bit, I forget how it is to have massive dps...but crumple in seconds if things get out of control, which can be as quick as one resisted root. The SK playstyle definitely suits me.

Don't think of Maj'Dul as a city. I always considered it more of another dungeon where not everything wanted to kill me. There is a lot of random aggro throughout the entire "city" before you even pick a faction. It's basically safe to run to the market area and that's about it. If you wander outside of that your are likely to get aggro. Once you pick a faction it's even worse with more roaming guards and such. Not to mention the roaming ^^^ policia that will come and wax you if they catch you killing anything in the zone without being under cover.


As for playstyle you should roll up a Swashbuckler or Brigand. Massive DPS with at least a little bit of tanking survivability. Even more survivability if you AA spec away from DPS and into the stamina line.

The fastest, easist way to get Call of Maj'Dul is to start with Coin faction.  Once the faction person at the docks stops giving you the repeatable quests (all of which you should be able to do at your level with Adept I main skills and Mastercrafter), you can head into Maj'Dul and start doing the Tears quests.  Or can you do those sooner?

Why would Coins be faster than Blades? I was leaning toward Blades because I'm a fighter :P

Also, I have mostly Master 1/2 spells and CAs, with a couple Adept 3s. I level slowly enough to make it worth it, though I've leveled like crazy in the last week.

UDD, what do you mean 'under cover'?

Well, it's been a while since I did it, but if I remember correctly there are less cock block solo quests at the docks and the quest to get Call in Maj'Dul is "easier".  I did some research on it at the time to make sure I was using my limited play time wisely, but I'd have to go through the wikia stuff again to provide proof.

There are flying police NPCs that will pwn you if you are fighting in the city, but you can hide from them by fighting mobs under tarps and roofs.

AK, just an FYI: my woodworker, Wyll, can make SoW totems. They're cheap and easy to crank out. Just send me the materials and I can make a couple batches for you. Unless you already bought a horse or something. I love the SoW totems like crazy. I forget the ingredients offhand, but it's easy to find online or ask me ingame. You can send the materials to Wyll with a note or just drop them in the guild banks and let Wyll know you did so.

Cool, thanks, I'm saving for a horsey now but I'll look up the mats.

Uh btw what's the difference between rush orders and work orders?

Rush orders are timed. They are also less items total. I forget the mechanics, but I think doing rush orders was more experience for time sunk into it, maybe slightly more cash. For tradeskills that don't have spells/CAs or good consumables, they rock. You're going sage, iirc, so you don't really need to sweat doing orders. Just grinding out App4s should level you up fine, though I do use tradeskill potions (vet rewards).

SoW potions are 24%, so don't bother with a low level horse. Also, if we level up the guild we can get discounted prices on horses, and eventually unlock the better mounts.

Any totems or food or anything you see in the guild bank is up for grabs. I try to keep a few goodies in there.

Ahhh...Jaguar totems (stealth + invis). My SK is going to be much more fun now that I can invis past stuff. Of course, he's also at the level where more stuff can see invis and stealth. So there's that.

Woodworker is a pretty cool profession for po' folks. SoW totems, water breathing, and now invis. But I think my favorite might be the harvest tools, the t5 tools reduce harvest by 1.5 seconds.

Do you have to equip them? Not hard to do via macro, but I am just wondering.

Just resubbed to EQ2, loving it again.  I think I may bring up an alt character on Oasis, who is on the most to PM for a guild invite nowadays?


Just tried out a macro the other day which equips a harvest tool & the corresponding tinkerer harvest tool, easy to do.  Seems to make a hell of a difference, or it was beginners luck, but was pulling rares from Sinking Sands at an incredible rate.  I am not completely sure if they are stacking (I assume so), but would recommend it when every you are out harvesting.  The only issue with the Macros, is the lack of icons for them.  I have a way around that if anyone is interested.

The tinkerer tools are based on your crafting level, and are named like miscalibrated <tool>, calibrated <tool>, and overclocked <tool>.  Anybody can use them, not just Tinkerers.

You don't have to macro your normal tool equipping, just pull the tool from your inventory into your hotkeys.

Not sure if it's a bug, but it doesn't seem you do anymore. Using the macro was a total pain in the ass and I don't think I ever got it right. I hope teh way it is now isn't a bug, because it would be in keeping with the trend SOE had last year of not making gameplay a pain in the ass. Why force someone to go through the shit of making a macro to cycle through all the harvest tools and dick with it every time they want to harvest something? I'm sure some people thought it was a great idea, though. It is an mmo, after all.

Nope you do not have to equip the harvesting tools, tradeskill tools, totems, poisons, potions, etc.. in your charm slot anymore.

They are now permanent buffs from inventory.

The only glitch right now is that if you die you have to requip each of the items in order to "rebuff" yourself but then they stay active until you die again.

Sweet, nice to know...I had no idea.  Does this include the tinkerer harvesting items as well?

I guess I should clarify I was mainly talking about the harvesting and tradeskill tools in the above post. Those are the permanent ones.

The totems, poisons, and potions can be activated from inventory but they still have a set number of charges and a duration.

Threw a bunch of looted crap into the bank along with a couple of plat. Took a bunch of arrows and totems to turn myself into a bat, cause, yeah, that's cool.

Monkey >> bat.

SRSLY.

Voodoo doll > all.

Also, don't bother throwing crap items in the bank. The Fabled shield, hell yeah (I can't use it, but if someone can, that's valuable). The treasured stuff? Mostly crap, especially now that crafted armor got a huge boost. I'd say Legendary or Mastercrafted would be the minimum unless it's a really good treasured item.

Cav's using a +30 int handcrafted staff, so even a couple of those items are ok, though mostly handcrafted is garbage, too.

(And this is all said as a dirty soloer with crap gear)

Guild level 20, bitches! Buy up some cheap mounts, extra room in the guild bank that we never really use anyway.

Shirley Bob finished an HQ, which reminded me that I had a bunch of grey ones to finish. So I did those and then took up several I had been meaning to do, finished the DWB, GBS, Oracle Robe, Fishbone, Stein of Moggok, and I think one or two others. I went nuts.

Also hit 50 with my wizard...Ice Comet, baby. Blam.

I saw that. Upgraded our crest with something vaguely batlike to memorialize our 20ness. I also helped kill a bunch of raid nameds on Friday.

Glar, didn't know you don't automagically get spells after 50  :awesome_for_real: I'm such a newb. Found the AppII guy in Malduj to get my fix until I go on another crafting binge. Should probably update my level 32 armor, too. Kinda funny after playing the SK to be able to take on triple-ups (greens mostly, admittedly) with total shit grey gear (32 MC and 30-40HQ).

Anyway, just an excuse update to post this TOTALE ARSESOME POST FOR REAL:

I love message boards. At least someone was nice and explained to him how to play a coercer; and it was interesting and informative, I love hearing good players explain tactics of classes I haven't played.

He went from 1-66 in two months and the class sucks at soloing...  :grin:

Ok. Don't Panic. Chairman Meow has seized control of EQ2 BC.

Not because of drama or a power trip or anything, quite the opposite. Stability. We've been lucky that there have been no major problems (well, you know who you are!  :awesome_for_real: ), but I had a dream a couple nights ago about guild permissions and whatnot and then yesterday I read a thread on the forum about a guild that lost all their status they had built up, and SOE wouldn't (and shouldn't, really) do anything to help out, they had to start over from scratch.

The reason I took over: I've contributed almost as much status as everyone in the guild combined (though Shirley Bob and Tragny are the other major contributors and are totally molecular and big thanks to Chorulle for his time with BC), I've been playing almost a year solid now and will most likely stick with it for quite a while, and I guarantee that nothing will happen to BC while I'm in charge. Any member of f13 in good standing is welcome, and longtime community members will always have officer-level privs, just like we always have. Newer members to f13 will still go through probation (as we have made them in the past), and any jackassery (and using the term loosely, again as we always have) here or ingame will go badly.

The only tangible difference is that I would be the only one who could break up the guild. And I will not. If I leave for some reason, I'll hand off the reigns to someone else, but I don't plan on leaving. Again, I'm not doing this to be a dick or to take control of the guild in spirit (because that would be silly, it's a chat channel for solo players, mostly). It's just to protect the status we've built up over a looong time. Existing members I made officers (except for the Retired rank, which became Vacationers :)), you have all the privs you had as Big Boss Foozles, except you can't kick me from the guild or change guild permissions. Probationer and Vacationer ranks are unchanged from before.

I'm not doing this to build up the guild for personal betterment, or for raiding, or any shit like that. In fact, I don't want non-f13 members at all, though cool people are always allowed. Nothing has tangibly changed, but BC will enjoy a measure of stability that was not assured in the past chaotic system.

I hope you are all cool with this and understand the spirit in which it was done. You are all valued members of our vaunted solo chat channel, and I hope to see the regulars rotate back in and out many times through the future. I wanted to provide an explanation before someone logged in (well, SurlyB) and freaked out about it :)

Sounds good to me, Sky. Obviously, I have not been playing for a while. I don't know if I ever had the chance to guild up my Coercer, but if you need to de-guild any of my inactive characters, feel free. I'm taking a little hiatus from EQ2, but will be back at some point in the summer, so I'll let you know when that happens. Great job on maintaining a solid guild.

I'm anxiously awaiting a post by Cheddar.   :awesome_for_real:

By take over you mean demoted the handful people with leader rank?

Yup, you guys can do everything you could do yesterday except ban me or change guild permissions (and if a permission is wrong, just let me know and I'll fix it, everything should be good to go, though). Unless you haven't been on in six months or so, I demote you to Vacationer and will reinstate you as Officer as soon as you're playing again.

The only other active member right now is Surlyboi, so this post was mostly for him, and to inform all the other folks (like you three and others) who drop in for a month or three. I didn't do this as a reaction to anything that happened here or ingame, just the thing I read on the official forums that bolstered something I had been thinking about anyway.

Bricks shat.

He's mad with power! Watch him change the guild cloak next!

I already did that.

Yeah, I can't afford to  :sad_panda:

Did my 9th HQ with Cav last night (all solo muhaha, though mostly green and none of the epic ones). Tobrin's Eyepatch. Not too bad, though the camp for the ice goblin was kind of a bitch (kill four groups of goblins to spawn a group, kill that and hope the named spawns...he didn't the first two times). The final encounter wasn't tough, the mobs were -6lvl green heroics to me (49 mobs, I'm 55), just no^ and ^. But there were six, and I'm still one point away from the AA that gives me -15% power cost for all spells.

So it was keystone cops as I ran out of mana when I had the last mob to 75% health. With my shitty mitigation (wizard in grey armor), he was thumping on me, my shield getting a little of it, enough to keep me from dying quickly. Casting my lil nuke every 20 or 30 seconds as he chased me around. Not enough health to cast my health to power buffs. Finally got him down after a few minutes, laughing my ass off.

Didn't help I was doing the yakety sax line the whole time, either.

Just got my jboots. 10% to run speed doesn't seem like much, but 10% jboots + 24% SoW totem + 8% wizard run speed = luv. 42% run speed = better than my 40% mount!

Had to give up 2% wizard run speed (via AA, and it works in-combat which is huge when your life tied to your root) to get the final ability in the sorcerer wisdom line that reduces all spell costs 15% (see last post). Really wish they'd loosen up a bit on AA, even 10 more points in each tree would be nice.

I need to finish my Jboots and my Golden Efreeti boots quests.

I also need to find a better haste item. FBSS is nice, but I think I need to score something better.

I need to log in an play again!  I even sort of miss it.  I've been a wee bit absorbed with  :nda: :nda: :nda:.

You can go to 70 points in each tree once you hit level 71. I wish they would get rid of that level restriction and just allow you to drop 70 points in whichever tree you want at any point.

Ah, that's not so bad, then. I'm working on a couple things in the EoF tree, +6 to spell range ftw, faster nukes.

SB, don't hesitate to ask for help with stuff if I'm on...though you're the grouper, so you probably don't need it :) I'm never sure when I'll play for any length of time, but Tues night (EST) and Sat mornings are my usual longer sessions.

Signe, sorry but Lt Dan kicked you out of the guild.  :grin:

ZOMG WE KILL DRAGONZ!

Raids have got to be the most boring way to play EQ2 possible. Or any game.

I killed Venekor with a couple groups sunday and tuesday SB and I killed Vox after many wipes. Most people left after Vox but a single group of us stayed and killed the other two epic mobs.

Risk v reward my balls. Putting up with way too many spazzy jumptards v reward imo.

And on Venekor a healer rolled and won on the int caster drop. And most of the stuff from the level 55 epic was low 40s gear. And I didn't get shit from any of the above raids, one level 41 master, whippee, I could get that soloing nameds for crissake.

Leveled the guild to 21, I guess.

The best part: If you change this mechanic, people complain.  It's truly amazing to me. 

I said to Surly at one point "This is fun?" He replied "I'm playing Wii Tennis" (or something on the wii, I forget). I admitted I was playing guitar. Everyone sat around for an hour waiting for people to show up. Drives me nuts.

And yes, there are people who feel that is 'earning' your leet gear. I admit there are some interesting mechanics in dealing with raid mobs, but I don't really think it's all that fun. Meanwhile, learning how to take on heroic mobs solo is much more interesting and 'risky', since there's little risk to it, who cares about xp debt or repairing, I was down to 30% on my items at the end of the Permafrost raid (fell down a chasm once, woops) thanks to a couple evacs when everyone else wiped. Cost me a couple gold, big whup at level 60.

Then of course is the tangent when people who put up with all that shit and get the uber gear and then think that soloing heroics is so easy because they have raid gear...and bitch about nerfing solo mobs for non-raid players. Ah, well.

1999 called and they want their complaints about MMOs back.

I was wondering if putting the pvp gear, solo gear, group gear, and raid gear all on completely independent tracks for no cross over.  You could only use solo gear in solo zones, etc.  That way people could play which ever gear tree they like and not have their gear invalidated by gear from other play styles.

Yeah, but I was raiding in '99 and it sucked then too.

You'd think in the nine intervening years, the mechanic would have changed. But as Nebu said, people bitch if you try to change it. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

Is Bat Country still going? Myself and a friend are considering getting the game (Well im considering, still on the trial, he already bought it) and MMOGs are more fun with friends.

Currently we both have several level 8 to 12 characters on AB.

Also, could some one explain how the PVP works on a PVE server? Is there any at all, like arenas and shit, or no pvp at all on a PVE server?

What do you consider still going? Bat Country was only really going once in my experience, when Tragny, gimpyone and I were doing some questing last autumn. BC doesn't go, it just is. It's basically a repository for status points (cheaper mounts, housing) for people who don't want to join a real guild.

Right now it's just SB and I active. If you get lucky and we're on for a bit, we'll group up with you, but the only time to date we've grouped was for Vox, we both signed up for a pickup raid independently.

PvP, no idea. Don't care at all. I guess there are arenas, since I have arena critters running around my house. I've heard it's barren. There's dueling. MMO PvP sucks.

Same here. not much of a fan of PvP in a game like EQ 'cause it tends to inflate the egos of toolboxes who otherwise have failed at life. (Not to say you guys are like that, but there is that thread in this subforum about the dork that has, in his own words, "dominated every world he's stepped into"

Rant over. i'll definitely group with you guys if you're game. I've got a monk and a templar that 'd like to level up.

I've been thinking of starting an Inqy, I have one slot open still for a total newb character. I could also dust off my kitchen bitch (17 Guardian, 48 Provisioner) and lern2tank. I've been wanting to learn tanking and healing roles.

I have started an assassin on Oasis and wouldn't mind grouping with y'all.  Only at like level 12 now.  I will try to find someone on tonight, to at least get an invite.

As someone who took assassin to 67 I recommend you don't do that.  Brigand or, maybe, one of the bards if you like the play style but assassin is not a powerhouse except in a group and even then is highly situational.

Well I am a glutton for punishment, I have taken a troub to 78 so far.....but I was considering the brigand, assassin just sounds cool.

Well, just so long as you are aware of what you are getting into.  Assassins just plain old aren't soloers, they can solo in as much as any class can, whites and yellow solo mobs are fine but forget heroics until late in life and even then it can be very dependent on time of day, angle of the sun and other such little minutia.  At mid 60's borderline green-grey ^^^'s would be iffy.

Assassins have a reputation as high dps so grouping/raiding is usually easy to get in on.

Same could be said about rangers. Still love playing mine to death. (Sometimes literally)

My SK is like that, too. He's kitted with MC/Leg/Fab stuff, Adept III/M I/II, and he still struggles with the heroic stuff. Encounters grind him down pretty quick.

The only big successes I've had with heroics has been the way a brawler can use his rapid FD to break up encounters (SK is a bit slow, 2.5min with AA between attempts) into manageable chunks and the wizard's group root. With a little wiggle room, the wizard is solid with all green heroics and can do some blue stuff, but my gear and spells suck because I'm in powerlevel mode.

Of course, those are the only three classes I've tried heroic stuff with, and the monk is only level 22 (SK 45, Wiz 61).

Do they allow server transfers?  I have several characters in their 40's that I wouldn't mind playing again (inq, warden, warrior, brigand) but I got sick of the solo grind.

for the princely sum of $50.00 you can, go through EQ2players.com - Character Services

Solo grind? Bah.

Speaking of character transfers, I need to finally delete my launch character, on LDL. Been holding onto him forever because he had the crappy launch jboot gift and he was born early enough that I got a name I wanted from previous MMOs.

I don't swear often, but $50?  Fuck that.

Or you can transfer to the exchange server for free.

And then sell your char when you get bored...

Don't worry we only have 23% more asshats on the bazaar as compared to a normal server.

....that works out to 122%  :ye_gods:

Also, rolled an inquisitor, Yogge.

Is there any way short of paying up for the dumb eq2players site to know what it is I discovered?

(http://eq2players.station.sony.com/signature?characterId=468355206&locale=en_US)

Geldoned to add:


(http://eq2players.station.sony.com/signature?characterId=813086206&locale=en_US)
(http://eq2players.station.sony.com/signature?characterId=681484206&locale=en_US)

I wish I could help ya out with that answer, but I have no idea.  I would have guessed that it was discoveries from not getting pristine in the old crafting system (had a guilldie who kept missing pristine and getting shaped, warped, etc. and he kept getting server discoveries), but Vzith is unskilled.

I will check for you if I can >>> Manacles (Adept III). Your discovery count is under Rankings. I don't remember if I have any of the EQ2PLayers extras for sure, but I think I do so I can look up items.

My character has three server discoveries, all RoK Treasured loot from solo mob wooden chests. And no, I wasn't catassing on day 1 of the expansion. They were spread out over the first two weeks.

Hmm. That's odd. You'd think Manacles (root) would be the #1 wizard spell created, eh? And I didn't start on Oasis until Jan 5, 2006!

Vzith makes sense, he was a launch Kunark character. Mujin could be either, he's my tailor but also did heavy farming of Wailing Caves for a while.

Mujin:
Vagabond's Staff of the Iron-heart

Vzith:
Nomad's Cowl of the Gambler
Nomad's Vest of Devotion
Pirate's Sleeves of Storms
Vagabond's Collar of Devotion
Wanderer's Ring of Grace
Nomad's Great Staff of the Tree
Nomad's Pouch of Fangs
Vagabond's Bow of the Knight
Wanderer's Knuckles of Fangs
Wayward Knuckles of the Iron-heart

Heh, GRAVEYARD!

I think they reset all discoveries at one point.  I remember getting one crafting a level 10 or something item :P

In this edition of Bat Country Notes, you can get a companion cube for your house with the current holiday event quest.  :drill: