Traveling man

Emergency road trip today, so no regular post.  I haven’t been online since Sunday anyway, so I don’t really have much to talk about today anyway.

If you haven’t yet and are interested, head over to EQ2 Traders and check out the preview for the upcoming Halloween events scheduled to go live on October 9.

Click this.

I feel stupid.
 
I read the patch notes.  I read what other people had to say about GU53.  I even heard and was grouped with guildies talking about this particular update.  Somehow, some way, it simply didn’t sink in until I read this post this morning.
 
In my shared bank, I have 2 36-slot boxes filled to overflowing with L&L components.  As I loot more, I stick them in there.  I’ll spend days sorting, grouping and arranging them because I never know when I’ll need one on some alt.  Over time, this practice has come in handy, but lately, it has been more trouble than it is worth.  The items are taking up valuable space and I now have so many items in the bank that it is difficult to arrange and sort.
 
I have thought several times about simply selling them all off or dumping them and then hoping I can loot more when the time comes.  It often takes a special kind of motivation on a given day for me to go hunt down some of the books because they are in zones I simply don’t visit very often.
 
So how stupid do I feel to suddenly realize that I don’t need the books to start the quest any longer?
 
Fortunately (and uncharacteristically), I hadn’t decided to empty those crates yet.  Ordinarily, the realization of the change wouldn’t dawn on me until after it was already too late.  I can definitely foresee a manic click-fest in my near future as I go nuts across my toons with those 2 crates.

Wizard love, mentoring crazy

What a fun weekend that was!
 
I spent most of last week excited and anxious to log on and check out the new updates, but I couldn’t ever seem to find the time.  Finally, I got on Friday.  Additional crashes above what I normally experience aside, I enjoyed what I saw.
 
I mostly spent Friday night checking out the Spires live event on Rao.  I ran it a few times in Antonica and then headed to Loping Plains and ran it there.  I was both surprised and excited to see that the quests in LP were different from those in Antonica.  I proceeded to visit several other spire locations to see if each zone had different quests, but they didn’t.  In the process of running some of the repeatables in LP, I remembered that LP had both a blue and red shiney collection that I haven’t done, so I put my goggles and earring on and worked on those while running the spire quests.  It didn’t take long for me to ding AA #199 and to have 50+ tokens to spend at the merchant.
 
I eventually crashed again and decided to call it a night at that point.  It was nearing 11 PM and I had an early ride Saturday morning.
 
My ride on Saturday went much more smoothly than the one the previous week.  Well, sort of.  I felt more sure of myself on my bike and much of my balance and confidence were returning.  I was much less hesitant and was really able to enjoy myself.  On the other hand, I got lost.  Horribly, horribly lost.  The upside of being lost is that I went about 6 miles further than I would have, but by the time I found my way again and got back to my truck, my legs were at the point of failure.  If I had been out there much longer, I wouldn’t have been able to peddle for much longer.  For the rest of the day on Saturday, each time I had to stand up, my legs buckled on me.
 
Fortunately, I didn’t have to get up much for the rest of Saturday as the serious gaming time was about to begin.
 
I was surprised to see how few people were logged on when I got online Saturday morning.  Saturdays are usually a huge gaming day for most of the people in my guild and bonus exp weekends are even more so.  Due to getting lost on the trails, I was later logging on than normal.  I figured I would log on to see all of the groups already filled and running strong, but I logged on to find fewer than 6 people online.
 
I started my day on Saturday running a few of the spire events on my wizard.  I had to be careful on him because he has been terribly neglected over time and I often forget how neglected.  At the start, he was level 74.  He is wearing a collection of T5 master crafted gear and Treasured quest gear.  He doesn’t have a single adept 1 spell… to say nothing of masters or experts.  He was firmly entrenched in apprentice 1’s.  In short, it doesn’t take much to shred him up… as I quickly remembered when I tried to do one of the combat spire quests.
 
I managed to get quite a few quests done with him nonetheless and, in the process, I started to remember why I used to love playing my wizard so much. 
 
Later in the day, we formed up a mentor group.  One of our normal group members was working a new alt and was taking full advantage of the bonus exp weekend.  We formed up, mentored all around, and started hitting instances.  I don’t know where he was at the start of the weekend, but by raid time last night, he was level 68 or 69.  In the process, even mentored down, I leveled my wizard from 74 to 76.
 
We finished off the night Saturday with a quick run through the access quest and then a bust through the Shard of Love.  I didn’t have much anticipation for this zone, but I have to admit that I ended up enjoying it a great deal.  I have heard some people complain about the lack of “real loot” in this zone, but I tend to like the fluff items much more than gear anyway.  It was a relaxing experience that was a nice break from the constant shard runs and, most importantly, it was fun.  My dice were in true form of course and I didn’t win anything.  I did, however, get the Biggest Loser achievement on 3 toons over the course of the weekend.
 
Yesterday started with a run through the Obelisk in the Moors that was both the daily double and the hot zone.  It wasn’t too hot as the normal drops were in the normal ornate chests, but that is always a fun zone since it is so quick.  After that run, we hit the Kurn’s Tower single group instance.  Two or three kills into that zone, Rao hit his 200th AA.
 
I took a break after Kurn’s tower and, when I returned a few hours later, I ran the Shard of Love access quest on Rao.  I logged over and was starting the access quest on my ranger when the call went out to hit the Valdoon instance in Loping Plains for another mentor session.  I logged back to Fuzz and we quickly knocked that zone out.  After that instance, I took Fuzz up to The Barren Sky to hit some of the disco I was missing up there in order to cap off his level climb to 76.
 
The weekend ended with a raid on Tomb of the Mad Crusader and Palace of the Ancient One.  Both were very enjoyable.
 
All in all, it was a very fun and enjoyable weekend.

The journey is half the fun? Maybe?

Well, in spite of my intentions, I didn’t get logged on last night.  I had every intention of doing so and desperately wanted to, but it didn’t happen.  I left work later than I had planned which threw my initial timing off.  I ended up getting to the gym about 30 minutes later than I had planned and then ended up having a really good workout where I simply lost track of time.  I didn’t get home until after 9 PM and I still hadn’t had anything to eat yet.  I made a quick sandwich to get my stomach to quit gnawing on my spine and then went to bed.
 
I am anxious to get online, but I was feeling overly anxious yesterday afternoon and made the mistake to visit the official forums to get my “fix.”  I hate visiting the official forums for any game because they tend to be such a cesspool of whining.  I am honestly always floored by the things people find to gripe about.
 
I understand her point and where she is coming from, but I have always disagreed with my guild leader when it comes to her stance on the level grind in MMO’s.  She can’t stand it and makes no bones about it.  Me, I think it is an invaluable part of the MMO experience.  Then again, I don’t look at it as a grind so much as a journey.
 
I see the leveling process as the period of time where you learn the game, learn your class, and learn how to maximize your abilities. 
 
That isn’t her only gripe though.  She hates the fact that a game that is a little bit older shows a fairly strong disadvantage to players new to the game.  This I understand. 
 
I never played City of Heroes so if I am totally off base here, someone please correct me, but didn’t that game have a reverse mentoring system in place?  If you wanted a lower level toon to group with higher level players, you could Sidekick them so that they could join the group?
 
I don’t know why more games don’t do that.  Have them start at level 1… not because I did and I think that everyone should have to do it too.  I will always be a firm believer that leveling through the game is still the best way to learn your class.  Did anyone ever group in EQ with someone who leveled a toon strictly via Monster Missions?  I remember doing a 69.1 with a cleric who didn’t realize clerics were healing classes.
 
Anyway, they have the leveling in front of them, but if a group or raid is forming, why not have a reverse mentor system where they can temporarily boost their level to whatever level is required?  They get for the duration of the reverse mentor the equivalent spells and abilities but will take an exp penalty like higher level toons take when mentoring down.
 
As for what they would do about armor, well, be creative.  Anyone remember “pet kits” from EQ?  Give one of the caster classes the ability to summon temporary armor kits for players that are level appropriate and have middle-of-the-road stats.  They might not be able to tank a VP raid as a reverse-mentored guardian, but they could at least participate.  Then, once the group/raid is over, they can return to their level and go back to questing or whatever they are doing to level up.
 
There isn’t any perfect solution.  For every Jaye out there who thinks the level grind is an archaic system that needs to go away, there is someone like me who still enjoys it and views it as a valuable part of the gaming process. 
 
Surely there must be some mechanic out there somewhere that could accommodate both schools of thought without isolating or eliminating one or the other.

Incoming… Train of Fun!!!

It is no secret that the new GU53 hit the servers yesterday.  While I am not as excited as some, there are definitely some things about this update that I am psyched about and the enthusiasm of those who are purely jacked up about this update is contagious.  Considering the state of my gaming mind for the last few months, the fact that I am excited at all is pretty significant.  Not two weeks ago, I was fighting a serious battle between two camps… cut back my play time significantly and see how it goes or quit completely.
 
In spite of the fact that I was pretty anxious to get online last night, I didn’t.  I patched my computers so that I wouldn’t have to wait for an unknown period of time the next time that I do log on, but I made the conscious decision to not log on.  The temptation was great, but I knew better.  First off, I had quite a few things to do last night and logging on at all would have ensured that at least some of them wouldn’t have gotten done.  Secondly, getting many of those things done was more important to me than being online.
 
The thing I am most excited about is the new live event.  I almost always enjoy these events a great deal.  The only one that I didn’t really get into very much was the “fill the urn with bones” shard events leading up to the TSO expansion.
 
I am very interested to find out how the heirloom tag on shard armor works.  One of the reasons that my ranger doesn’t have any T2 shard armor is that I haven’t managed to land the recipe book for him and, for whatever reason; I am always reticent about asking people to craft it for me.  I want to find out how exactly that will work.  Will the T1 shard armor remain tradable through the shared bank after it has been equipped or is it only tradable prior to being equipped?  That is my big question for that.
 
I’ll be curious to see how I handle all of the new quest events on Rao.  I have been reluctant to play him much lately because he is 12% away from AA 199.  With the new level cap coming in February, I almost hate to complete quests on him since I know I will have some grinding to do once that goes live.  Once he hits 200, all xp goes into the void.  Still, the live event is only a temporary thing, so I don’t guess I can really count any experience from those as lost experience.  Knowing me, I’ll run the event enough times on each toon to be able to buy at least one of everything being offered, so I am quite sure he will hit #200 before I am done.
 
I am also curious to see what achievements he has when I log on.  He has already completed nearly 2000 quests and has respectable kill quotas on most creatures that get tracked by kills.  I forget how many collections he has completed, but it is in the neighborhood of 200.  He has more named kills than any other character and has done a significant portion of the content in the game.  He has definitely been my workhorse character.
 
Some of my other guys should also see some interesting hits, but Rao will definitely outstrip the rest.
 
I really don’t see any possible way that I won’t be logging on tonight.  I am more anxious to see all of these changes than I have been for anything since the day Planes of Power went live in EQ.  It is my hope that I will get out of the office at a decent hour this evening so that I can get to the gym early and then get home with enough time left that I can put in a couple of hours before heading off to bed.
 
Regardless of what happens, I expect that this weekend will see me on some serious EQ2 overload.  My bike ride is scheduled for 6 AM Saturday morning so I expect I’ll be home no later than 9 or 10.  After that, I am free and clear for the rest of the weekend… and I don’t think I will have any difficulty figuring out how to fill those hours.