Nada. Zip. Diddly. Bupkis. Niente.

That’s how much I have to say today… which is a good thing because that is also how much time I have to spend writing today.

I couldn’t help it… I fell asleep on the couch last night as soon as I got home.  I awoke to the freaking annoying-ass sound of 2 cell phones ringing.  I answered the personal cell and listened to an hour of a friend bitching about her job.  I then returned the call on my work cell and spent another hour listening to a co-worker bitch about his job.

Once I finally hurled both phones across the room hoping to actually lose them once and for all this time, I realized it was already after 10.

So, no EQ2 time, no study time, and not even any dinner time.  There was nap, phone, bed.  Very dull night.

Today, I am spending my time calling a software company who, get this, doesn’t know how their own software works.  I’m not talking snarky comments that immature haters like to throw out like, “Sounds like Sony.”  I’m talking… these people literally don’t know.

Here is a sample of a call I had with one of this companies PROGRAMMERS FOR GOD’S SAKE!

Me: I’m trying to configure your software to work through a web interface, but I want to construct it in a test environment first.  I need to copy the license code from our live environment over to my test bed.
Him: Our software doesn’t work in a web interface.
Me: Yes it does.  It’s on page 1 of the manual.
Him: Hang on.  Hmm.  I didn’t realize we had that set up.
Me: Yeah.  Well, I have my IIS configs done, but I need to test it.  The software won’t run at all without the license code.
Him: What’s IIS?
Me: Nevermind.  Can you help me with the license file?
Him: I don’t think our software requires a license.
Me: Well, it does.  Is there someone there who can help me?
Him: I’ll ask, but I’m the senior developer.  I’m not sure any of these other guys will know either.  I’ll call you back.

That is just one of the dozen or more calls I’ve had with this company over the last 2 weeks.

What the hell though.  This guy at least recognized the name of the software as a package his company developed… which put him a few notches above the last sorry-ass I spoke with.

There’s Gold in Them Thar Hills!

It was fairly late by the time I got around to logging on last night… right around 9:30.  I typically try to be in bed no later than 10:30 during the week… especially since I generally have to read for at least an hour or two after crawling into bed in order to fall asleep.  So, I knew I didn’t have time to do much.

I decided to try to get some roots from The Sinking Sands because I’m running low on my jeweler.  I logged on Rao and off I went.

There are a few consistent spots for roots in The Sinking Sands.  They have a chance to spawn on any grassy area, but there are 2 spots that have ruins on them and then the Oasis closest to the docks all consistently spawn the roots.  I hit those locations first and grabbed what was spawned and then started running my circuit through the zone grabbing up shinies while I waited on the respawn.  Probably 99% of the shinies that spawn in SS I have already, but most sell fairly quickly and there is always the chance that I’ll pick up the few that I’m missing that seem to be quite rare.

I’m not sure exactly what was going on last night, but I was grabbing up rare shinies like the zone had just won the lottery.  I was able to finish 3 collections that I’ve had for months and added at least 1 item to another 4.  Most of the others that I looted were also rares but rares that I had just happened to luck into previously.  In addition to that, I grabbed up just under a stack of roots to send over to Fuzz for crafting.

During the course of that activity, I got to chatting with a friend who informed me he was thinking of looking for a new guild.  Our guild is good… recently downgraded from great… but it is somewhat restrictive.  He has a toon that he loves playing and quite a few that he likes having around but that he doesn’t really want to play actively.  He was informed last night by the officer corps that he would not be allowed to play the toon he enjoys as his main if he wanted to raid.  They would never allow him to take the toon he enjoys to raids… even if they are short on people.  This was similar, although more hard-edged, than what they told me when I let them know I was shelving my dirge.

I realize that with the small number of raid slots available in this game that there are some slots that have to be reserved for certain classes, but geez.  Here’s a thought… you want to tell me what character to play, you are more than welcome to give me your credit card information so that you can start paying for my account.  Otherwise, go screw yourself.

Anyway, thanks to their kind and understanding reaction, he pretty much did tell them to go screw themselves last night when they were forming up to raid.  He tracked down an old EQ1 friend of his and asked him about his guild, and then he went raiding with that guild on the character that he actually wants to play.  He is going to spend a few days deciding if he wants to leave our guild and go join them.  Quite frankly, depending on his report, I might end up following.  I haven’t decided yet.  I take guild affiliation very seriously and it takes quite a bit for me to detag once I join someone.

While I was harvesting around last night, some poor soul came over the top of the hill and dropped down the other side… not realizing (I guess) that Terrorantula was up.  He was also low enough level that the normal terrantulas still loved him too.  He ran past me with one massive 8-legged horror of a train on his ass screaming in /shout “RAID!  RAID!  MY KINGDOM FOR A CAN OF RAID!!!”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

T’weren’t nothin’

Root canal is over and done with.  Through all of the horror stories and memories I had of family members lying in bed moaning in pain after a root canal, the whole thing was anti-climactic.  The only part that hurt was paying for it once it was over and done with.  My dental insurance didn’t cover the whole thing.

My co-workers, being ever-so-cheerful, started going on and on when I got back to work about, “Yeah, well, wait until all the shots wear off.  THEN you’re going to feel some pain.”  The shots wore off about 2 hours ago.  There is some throbbing, but I’ve hurt myself worse while asleep.

I don’t know.  It could be the simple fact that I hurt myself so frequently that things like this just don’t bother me.  More likely, the technique for performing this procedure has vastly improved over the years and it is not nearly as traumatic as it used to be.

I can feel it to be sure, but I wouldn’t say it hurts.  I just finished eating lunch and I didn’t have any difficulty eating.  There is no swelling, so no chipmunk jokes or Godfather references are available to my co-workers.

I think they are definately disappointed.

I didn’t OD on EQ2 this weekend like I did last weekend.  Much of this weekend was spent studying and preparing for my exam that is coming up this next Saturday.  I took 2 practice exams and failed both.  The first I failed quite miserably.  The second one, I failed only by a couple of points.

The annoying fact is that I am not missing questions because I don’t know them.  I am missing them because some of these questions are designed to trick you.  One of the questions that I missed was as follows:

Your mother recently upgraded her old PC from Windows XP to Windows Vista Home Basic edition.  After seeing a friend running Aero, your mother decided that she wants you to upgrade her version of Vista to a version that supports Aero.  You buy the upgrade pack and start the installation.  In the process, you realize that her graphics adapter will not support the Aero interface.  Upon completion of the upgrade process, what is the first thing you should do?

A) Purchase and install a new grahpics adapter.
B) Update her graphics driver through Windows update.
C) Check the manufacturer website for a newer driver.
D) Register with Microsoft.

Granted, I just scanned the question, thought about it from a technician point of view, and answered it that way.  However, the answer was D.  When I went to the explanation page, it said, “You were asked to update the OS to a version that supports Aero… not get Aero working.  D is the correct answer because the next step of the upgrade process is to register the software.

My only thought was, “Any technician that got hired on to do a job where they knew why the person wanted to upgrade and then approached this situation in this way would QUICKLY lose a customer.”

Oh well.

During study breaks, I did pop into EQ2 a bit.  Saturday was a short crafting day.  I leveled my provisioner and jeweler and took Rao out harvesting for about a half hour, but nothing more than that.

Sunday, after taking a new practice exam and scoring much better, I decided to take a break from studying and have some fun. 

I fired Raynar and Fuzzlewump up and headed off to Lesser Faydark and began questing there.  I knocked out quite a few of the quests over on the Greater Faydark side and did 4 Kelethin writs for Fuzz (Ray can’t take them being evil and all).  Fuzz was also able to complete a couple of the quests from the Fae Court in LFay just in the course of the running around I was doing.  The end result is that another experience gap has appeared between Ray and Fuzz.  I keep getting them even and then they separate again.  Right now, there is about a 20% gap in there.

My guild buddy sent me a tell while I was off hitting LFay and we met up to run through the Meldrath instance in Steamfont again.  It was a rich night in there.  All but one of the bosses dropped an exquisite chest.  The last dropped an ornate.  I upgraded one of my weapons and my friend got his hands on quite a few items that he can transmute to work on his skills.  I’ll have to take a screenie of Ray wielding his new spear.  Freaking thing is huge.  It kind of reminds me how the old Primal Spear looked from Sleeper’s Tomb.

Once finished there, we hit the instance in Klak’Anon.  Technically, we shouldn’t have even tried.  My guys were 53, his defiler was 56 and his pally was mentored down to 56.  These mobs were almost exclusively triple heroics 58 and above.

Still, we did well.  We had a couple of bad pulls that nearly resulted in a messy situation, but we were able to come out of it just fine.  Towards the end, when we destroyed the power cells and got that boss, we ran into our first roadblock.  That AE that dude fires off was destroying us.  We wiped on him twice.  The third time, we decided to change strategies just a bit.  I changed from concentrating on my brigand and just timing my nukes with Fuzz to going mostly to auto-attack on Raynar and chain nuking hell with Fuzz.

Third time was the charm and he went down… freaking FAST.  He only got that AE off twice.  It was a good fight.  Of course, after 2 wipes and us actually contemplating waiting until we were a little higher in level, he dropped a wooden chest with monkey crap inside.

The rest of the instance was a cake-walk.  The last 2 named, the King and the big wall-hangy robot thing, both died easily and we got our reward and left.

Once that was done, I decided to finish off my Dwarven Work Boots HQ that I had been dragging my feet on.  It was only 27 levels trivial.  I was up to Rotweed in Stormhold and was very lucky that he was up already when I got there.  I ran into some trouble getting the update from the mature antelope.  I know where to find those and never have to wait for them to spawn, but they just wouldn’t update.  I finally got it and took the supplies to that halfling in Thundermist Village.  While I was waiting for her to update, I went and started the PGT HQ and got partially through that by the time the update popped.

One of the great things about having 2 accounts with toons spread out across levels and locations is that I never have to hunt for someone to mentor for a turnin.  So, I moved toons around, mentored, and got my turn-ins done.

I’m not sure how much playing I’ll get done this week.  I’m at zero-hour for my test.  I have to do some hard and fast prep-work for my test this week, so my gaming will most likely be limited to checking brokers and maybe a harvest run or two.

Oh well.  At least Ray and Fuzz will get their vitality built back up before next weekend.  That’s always nice.

Worst Tech Call Ever!

Re-enacted from just a few minutes ago.

*RING*
Me: IT Support.  This is Me.
Him: Hey.  Could you come here for a minute?
Me: Where is ‘here’ and what is the problem?
Him: I’m in the can taking a crap and I’m not getting e-mails on my Blackberry.

So sue me

With the revelation yesterday that Sony has registered what appears to be the expansion names for the next EQ and EQ2 expansions, theories and speculations are running rampant as to what those expansions will be.  I enjoy reading everyone’s ideas a great deal and am often quite impressed with how closely some people come to the reality and truth.

One of the biggest predictions for EQ2 is that this next expansion will be Luclin… or what is left of Luclin.  I have said often enough that I hope Luclin is never introduced to EQ2.  I’ve also been flamed and criticized for saying such things.

People were passionate about Luclin.  They were either passionate about loving it or passionate about hating it.  I definately fall on the “hating it” side.  But, for clarification, I will attempt to explain why as best I can.

The expansion itself was okay.  I enjoyed some of the zones.  I thought Sanctus Seru was absolutely beautiful while Katta Castellum made me feel like I had stepped into Gotham City.  Katta became one of my favorite zones.  Ssra was well constructed and interesting and The Grey that surrounded it had an ambience that the developers nailed.

There were zones that I disliked as well.  I found The Scarlet Desert difficult to look at simply because the way the sand was textured would hurt my eyes after a time.  I forget the names of all of the zones, but there were several with massive plants that I thought looked like they were drawn with a crayon by a 3 year old.

None of this has anything to do with why I have so much hatred for Luclin that it would probably carry over to EQ2 sight unseen if they reintroduced it however.

I hated Luclin because, in my opinion, it completely changed the landscape and was the precursor for shrinking the world.  No, I’m not talking about the teleport spires.  Let me see if I can explain.

I joined EQ after Kunark was released but before Velious.  I remember well what the game was like in those days.  I started my EQ life in Greater Faydark.  Most days, the zone would have 90+ people there hunting through the newbie areas.  When I transitioned into Crushbone, there were typically over 100 people in the zone.  Oasis of Marr averaged 120+ people.  Lake of Ill Omen would often break 200 people.

When Naggy and Vox popped, raids would form immediately and people anxiously maneuvered for position to be a part of the raid.  The Planes of Hate and Fear were raided constantly even after Velious was released.

The was a progression that most people went through.  They leveled up and geared up.  At 46, they started attending as many Planar and dragon raids as they could.  At 53, once they had outleveled Naggy and Vox, they started trying to get into Kael Arena raids or raids on the lesser bosses in Kunark like Venril Sathir.  Up until the day that Luclin was released, many guilds would still race to raid Trakanon, Gorenaire, and all of the other Kunark bosses when they would pop.  The Temple of Veeshan was a staple to progression and all guilds would go through their time in the Halls of Testing and then on to the North wing.

I’m not saying that spawn racing was a good thing.  In fact, it was something that I found quite annoying.  The point is that the content remained relevant.

That all changed with the release of Luclin.  From the original game to Kunark and from Kunark to Velious, there were minor jumps in gear quality.  In order to prepare for raiding in Kunark, your best chance of success was to gear up in the original content.  In order to prepare for raiding in Velious, your best bet was to gear up in Kunark.

Luclin introduced the first quantum leap forward in gear quality.  Suddenly, you had gear dropping in newbie yards that rivaled gear from Fear and Hate.  You had mid-level quest and drop gear rivaling Velious gear.  The minor bosses in Luclin dropped gear that far outstripped even the best gear from NToV except for Vulak gear.

The whole concept of the game changed.  People fled Norrath for Luclin.  Within days of Luclin being released, all of the leveling zones from the release, Kunark and Velious were ghost towns.  Zones like Palaudal Caverns were sporting populations of 300+ people screaming at each other for spawn stealing.  Mobs like Venril Sathir and Trakanon became immortal because they would spawn and stay up for weeks at a time because no one was interested.

Had Luclin followed the same path and only incrementally increased the quality of gear, things would have been different, but it was such a quantum leap forward that everything pre-Luclin became completely trivialized. 

Then, the dye was cast.  Each following expansion kept up with the massive leaps forward in gear quality.  It wasn’t long before old terrors like Gorenaire, who in the Velious days still took a full raid force and even then victory was not certain, became solo content.  The Avatar of War, who was once probably the most contested mob in the game, sat around wondering where all the love went.

My point of view is archaic and I freely admit that I’m a relic.  Many people want fast progression and fast loot.  I just preferred the old way of progressing through content rather than leap-frogging straight to the end game without experiencing all that came before.  It is not a popular belief and people like me are few and far between these days.

Still, right or wrong, I view the release of Luclin as the catalyst that began this paradigm shift and, as a result, I have nothing but ill feelings towards Luclin.

Yesterday, after expressing my hope that Luclin was not coming to EQ2, it was suggested that I was foolish if I thought an EQ2 Luclin would be exactly like EQ Luclin.  That isn’t it at all.  As I explained there, it is almost like a pavlovian response.  We associate sounds, smells, sights, and sounds with past experiences.  A particular smell can trigger a memory to a particularly bad moment in time and, regardless of how distant that memory is or what the current circumstance is, you almost can’t help slipping back when you pick up that scent again.

Luclin is similar to that for me.  It represents that I personally viewed as the absolute worst time in EQ history beyond even that Gates of Discord debacle.  For me, the very word “Luclin” will forever be associated with what I personally view as the decline in the game that I loved and a transition to a game that I played more for what it once was rather than what it had become.

It isn’t a rational chain of thought, but there it is.

However, the more I read various speculations, the more I come to believe that this next expansion will not be Luclin.  I personally favor the opinion that it might be an expansion that releases a collection of content such as Odus, The Hole, and some of the old Planes, but that is probably just because that is content that I loved in EQ.

The only truth is that we won’t know for sure until the development team tells us what it will be.

So, I guess my main curiosity right now revolves around what type of expansion will it be?  Desert of Flames was a high level expansion as was Kingdom of Sky.  The next 2 were all-level expansions.  I guess it stands to reason that, whever the expansion is that we will get this winter, it stands a good chance that it will be primarily, if not exclusively, a higher level content expansion.

I’ll just be content to wait and see.