Oooh, hothothothothothothot!!!

I spent some time in Lavastorm last night. 

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Lavastorm since EQ1.  It was one of my favorite hunting spots when I was leveling up my wizard back in EQ1, but it never ceased to piss me off at least once per hunting session because the elementals hit hard and my wizard was squishy. 

I wasn’t actually hunting there last night though.  I had intended to do some hunting there with my ranger since I haven’t hunted there with any other toon.  I thought with the revamp, this might be a fun spot.  Unfortunately, before I even realized it, I had out-leveled the zone.

Over the weekend, I grabbed the quest for the miner’s hat that you need to see a shiny in Deep Forge to start some HQ.  Since my ranger didn’t exist in the days leading up to the TSO release, he didn’t get the miner’s hat the easy way.

So I am on the eternal quest for an ebon cluster.  I can go to other zones and snag an ebon cluster after a few harvests, but not in Lavastorm.  My luck there runs low.

That’s okay though.  I am addicted to (and determined to complete) all the new shiny collections that sprung up with the revamp.

I also have a personal goal to some day, sooner or later, visit that zone, pay freaking attention, and quit walking off a cliff into the damn lava.  That may not be as glorious or glamorous as other goals that I could have for myself, but hey… to each his own.

The upside to spending so much time harvesting there is that I am building up my rare collection again.  Some weeks ago, I spent every copper I had to my name so I brokered most of my rares to rebuild my bank account.  Without thinking, I stuck all of my t5 rares up for sale… forgetting that they were needed for the tradeskill epic.

I had enough t5 rares banked to take an army of toons through the tradeskill epic and still have leftovers.  It wasn’t until this past weekend, when I finally decided to start working on the epic with my jeweler and sage, that I realized my error.

I’m nearly ready to wrap those two up now though.  1 more ebon cluster and I’ll be able to finish them off.

And if I can only manage to quit taking lava baths, my chances for getting that ebon cluster might just improve.

The good, the bad, and the WTF?!?

The news coming out of fanfaire is pretty much old news at this point, but oh well.

For those who weren’t listening in on the live chat (and/or were living under a rock for the last 3 days), the new expansion is Odus… complete with Tox Forest, Erudin, Paineel and The Hole.

Adventure levels, tradeskill levels, and guild levels are all increasing by 10.  The number of AA’s we can get are going up by… I think it was 50, but there won’t be a new AA line.  Curious.

I’ve been arguing it for a while with friends who disagreed with me, but it seems that the new expansion will somewhat trivialize mythicals.  It is only natural.  You can’t have a piece of gear that out-strips everything else for too long and mythicals are 2 expansions old now.  Sooner or later, everything has to be replaced or what is the point?  Epics in EQ1 were top dog (for the most part) for 2 expansions as well before they started being phased out.

Still, there will be new weapons that share traits with mythicals and I believe there was some mention that having the mythical would be a requirement for obtaining some of them, but I could be remembering that wrong.

Raiding.

/sigh.

Raiding is going to continue along the lines of VS raids with an increase in annoyance factor.  Raids will be even MORE reliant upon potions, but curing one effect can often result in a second landing while some effects are effects that have a “cure this and you die” type stigma attached.

Apparently the raid developers listened to all the players saying this method of raiding was anything BUT fun and translated that to, “Give us more please.”  I equate it to a group of proctologists sitting around pondering their profession before one pipes up with, “I’ve got it!  We all know that everyone hates rectal exams.  What if we quit using a lubricant and the latex gloves and use gloves made out of sandpaper instead?  Do you think people would start enjoying it then?”  And all the other proctologists agree to it.

Utility classes are going to be getting an overhaul of sorts.  The limited 24-person raid has always been, in my mind, insanely restrictive… especially considering how many classes there are in the game.  Throw in the concept many people have that each group needs a dirge or a troub, groups need specific healers, and groups need either a coercer or an illusionist and some classes will be left out.

The idea they tossed out was that the utility classes will have their abilities overhauled to be raid wide.  Dirge buffs would hit everyone rather than just their group… and so on with the other utility classes.  As a result, a raid will only need 1 dirge opening another spot on the raid for some other class.

Personally, I think this is a good move for a number of reasons… not the least of which is that if future raids actually are going to be as idiotic and asinine as their description of them has led me to believe, this dirge won’t be raiding anymore at all.  I have better things to do with my time.

Like smashing my head in a vice.

Or pouding my toes with a sledgehammer.

Or slathering my body in honey and laying down in a bed of fire ants.

Or using an africanized beehive as a pinata.

Or going down a waterslide covered in broken glass and diving into a pool filled with lemon juice.

Or…

Well, you get the picture.

I’m the tired I everest was

I have now been awake since 5 AM Tuesday morning.

Not entirely true, but close.  I have dozed off for 15 minutes here and there, but no more than that. 

I just have to make it through today and tonight though and then this project is over.  I can then spend a couple of days in a coma and try to get back to normal.

Sleep is for the weak

/yawn

So, I’m weak.

Wake me when it’s over please.

*Puff* Goes the Bixie

I started the tradeskill epic on my recently 80 sage last night.  I’m such a yutz too.  I had actually intended on doing the tradeskill epic on my jeweler some time ago, but I was convinced that the NPC wasn’t offering me the quest.  As a result, I had convinced myself that I didn’t have the needed faction.

Heaven forbid I look the damn thing up to see where I was going wrong.

Last night, I took my sage to start the quest because I knew damn well he had the faction.  I ran to the NPC… and got offered the same quest my jeweler had been offered.

I ran around in circles for a while.  I was convinced I was hailing the wrong NPC.  The location seemed right, but I KNEW beyond any doubt that the first quest in the series was different from what was being offered.

Finally, desperate and in need of answers, I did the unthinkable… I opened a browser and looked it up.

Much to my chagrin, I discovered that I was at the correct NPC and that the quest he was offering was indeed the starter quest.  I could have done it all on my jeweler weeks ago afterall.

I spent so much time running in circles that, by the time I discovered my mistake, the evening was getting late.  As a result, I didn’t have time to finish.  I did the crafting step and then did my running around.  I hit the bixie hive and poofed me some bixies and then did some more running around.

I am now up to the step where I have to go huck books at librarians in Maj’Dul.  That is where I called it a night.

Tonight is raid night so I won’t get back to this until tomorrow… and that is IF I even log on tomorrow.  Tonight begins the psychotic late night/early morning work schedule to wrap up this project so I may be sleeping during my normal game time tomorrow and for the rest of the week.

Once I finish the sage epic, I’ll do it all again for my jeweler.  I’ve been debating if I want to do the slow writ grind on my other 80 crafters so I can do the epic on them as well, but that sounds like more trouble and pain than what I want to do.  I think I would almost rather level those toons up and do the epic once I get the faction the old-fashioned way.

We’ll see.

All I really want are the T8 rares you get as a reward because the words “luck” and “harvesting” have not belonged in the same sentence for me lately and I have 2 toons who are in desperate need for T8 rares right now.  Well, 1 really with 1 who will soon be there.

Oh, the things we do to make alt armies happy, huh?