Kalamaf Drackonsbane » EverQuest 1 & 2

Crafting in my Spare Time

kalamaf — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:54:54 +0000

Since the guild hall has everything you need all in one room, including Writ givers, I’ve taken to burning through some crafting levels in my spare time. Kal had changed over to woodworking a couple years back but I only ever got him up to mid 40′s before getting bored. Woodworker’s get to make clubs and staffs and arrows. Tons and tons of arrows. It can get a little boring making the same stuff over and over again, sometimes I wish I had gone carpenter instead so I could make boxes, wall candle sconces and other neat furniture. But at least with arrows people always need to buy more, they don’t last forever.

Damn that’s a nice Guild Hall

kalamaf — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 04:16:08 +0000

I see that in my absence real Guild Halls were added to the world of EQ2 and damn are they nice. And expensive to maintain. But the features are so worth it! in one room we have a banker, broker, all top end crafting stations, a harvest storage box and 3 harvesters that we can send out to gather any tier items we need. There’s portals and mariners bells and spires to take us nearly anywhere we need to go and over 1000 other decorative items from area rugs and chandeliers to pets and plants.

And the weekly cost for all this? Over 6pp and a few hundred thousand status, whee! I haven’t played enough so far to see how easy it is to earn plat nowadays, but it must be better than it used to be since we haven’t been evicted yet!

To Stay or Move

kalamaf — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 04:10:10 +0000

The same people I used to play EQ2 with are still playing on the same server, pretty much on the same nights of the week. The trouble is there are so few of them that getting a group going rarely happens, so I’ve been thinking of grabbing some cheap moving boxes, dropping the $25 and moving Kal over to a new server. As it is I’ve been leveling a baby assassin on AB, but he’s only level 19 so far and it’s rather boring doing the same quests again that I’ve done several times before. There’s lots of people to play with though, or will be once I get another dozen levels out of the way. It’s hard to leave home though so I really can’t decide what to do!

Quest Whoring Continues

kalamaf — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:51:21 +0000

Hi, my name is Kalamaf and I’m a quest whore. I’ve always freely admitted to that and it holds true even after a year long break. Tonight is the first time I’ve really dragged myself out of the guild hall to go adventuring and where do I find myself? Rivervale, trying to complete more of those stupid book quests! I put 2 of those to bed and then headed to Runnyeye to look for the brewing goblin to kill him for a Stein, and hopefully find enough Evil Eyes to finish off the rampage quest. I’m bashing in so many skulls and eyeballs that I have no need for apidexin, but the guy behind the keyboard could maybe use some since he just sits there like a lump, clicking buttons to make me move!

Damnit, Sucked in Again

kalamaf — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:34:22 +0000

13 months since my last subscription expired but here I am firing up EverQuest 2 again. This time I blame the goons and their promise of quinny buzz riding fun! Actually it’s a run speed cape for newbies, but since I’m reactivating my old account there’s no fancy cape for me.

Looks like a lot of changes in the last year. A shiny new threat meter has been added, lots of new collection quests and finally a way to quickly see in the bazaar whether you already have an item in your collection! I’m pretty sure that feature wasn’t there when I last played, but now when browsing Collectible items (advanced search) the ones you already have are grayed out while the ones you need are in a nice bright white. I also see there’s direct support for multi-core CPUs now so upgrading to a quad is finally tempting.

EQ and EQ2 free for 60 days

kalamaf — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:56:53 +0000

If you’ve ever had an EQ1 or EQ2 account but currently aren’t subscribing, SOE wants you back and they’re going to give you 60 days for free. On top of that they’re giving free access to all expansions currently available. That doesn’t mean much to me for EQ2, since I had bought RoK when it released I already have all expansions and adventure packs. For EQ1 though I haven’t bought anything since Dragons of Norrath so there’s probably 2 or 3 I can get for free now.

Looks like I’ll be back in EQ2 land for a couple of months, time to start grinding out those quests again, I haven’t played in 5 or 6 months so I’ve probably gone down in ranking a fair bit during that time. Break out the renaissance costumes, it’s slaughtering time.

EQ2 has expired, now what?

kalamaf — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:59:46 +0000

I canceled my recurring 3 month subscription to EverQuest 2 a couple of months back and now that my billing cycle has come up, I’m done, for a while at least. I’m not exactly hurting for games to play these days and the xbox 360 is great for relaxing on the couch and killing time. Rock Band, Guitar Hero III and Burnout Paradise are all awesome games, and I haven’t even loaded up Mass Effect yet.

Then a couple days ago I got myself hooked on Puzzle Quest for the PC. It’s a fun little game that uses Bejeweled style mechanics but with an RPG frame built around it. Combine rows of skulls to damage your opponent, colored mana to cast spells ala Magic The Gathering and explore the map, gain exp & gold to advance your character and your castle. It’s available on the XBox Live Arcade too, but since I got it for PC already I won’t bother with that version.

Shards of Dalaya

kalamaf — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:36:24 +0000

For anyone getting the urge to fire up the original EverQuest for nostalgic purposes, Shards of Dalaya is a free way to do so as long as you have Titanium version or higher. SoD is an EQ emulation, free to use and play although donations are appreciated and used to keep the server running. It makes use of 6 expansions and place names and mob populations have been modified from the original game, Dwarves for example start in Underhill (formerly known as Ak’anon). The basics remain the same, you’ll probably die a lot while getting used to it again, but at least now you don’t lose exp, you incur exp debt which must be paid off before you can gain any new exp.

AA’s are still part of the game as well, but at level 5 I won’t be seeing those for a long time. The server admins allow you to box 2 accounts at a time, but no more than that, so I’ve created a warrior/cleric combo for the time being. A lot of reviews I read about the game complain that they changed the lore/gods along with many of the quests, but I never followed much of the lore back in the day, or cared much for one god or the other.. and quests, well, EQ has never been quest friendly especially when compared with EQ2 or WoW. It seems like good fun so far despite the extremely outdated graphics. And uhmm, it’s free, so quit playing or quit complaining =)

Need Furniture

kalamaf — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 06:53:18 +0000

I could use some new furniture for my humble little 3 roomer in North Freeport. Chairs that match would be a good start, and maybe some platform beds for those times when company gets too drunk to leave. Could just let ‘em sleep on the floor though, cheaper for me and funnier too when one of ‘em gets accidentally stepped on in the middle of the night. Yeah, let’s leave it at that. Some usable shelving would be nice too, I’m running out of tables.

Ding 32, time for new Mastercrafted Leather

kalamaf — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:02:20 +0000

A great thing about playing video games is the complete political incorrectness of it all, at least as far as animal treatment is considered. Don’t get me wrong, I hate it when animals are mistreated out here in the real world, but this is a game and I can separate virtual from reality without going postal on a litter of kittens or something stupid like that. So on top of my Ogre wanting a pair of sheepskin boots he’d like to get his hands on a whale-hide hat, some baby seal leather gloves and a cloak made of various furry animal parts.

Ack, rent time

kalamaf — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:39:37 +0000

As usual now that I can do all my selling directly from any broker in the game, I tend to forget to go back and pay the rent once in a while. Not that it really matters since I only have 1 box full usually, but if the rent ain’t paid then people can’t go visit my messy apartment to save themselves a few coins. I’m kind of in need of some home improvements, but since I opted for a cheap house in Freeport North that doesn’t require a status upkeep and only costs 7g74s a week there just isn’t much incentive to spend a bunch of coin on nicer furniture for my little 3 room crap shack. I’m too lazy to even arrange the existing stuff nicely =)

Having Said That…

kalamaf — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:29:17 +0000

… the alts are still running a little dry on overall fun. Maybe it’s from having 4 alts all between levels 22 and 32 so they’re all adventuring in the pretty much the same couple of zones. Whatever the reason, it’s starting to feel like I’m just running on a treadmill grinding a few levels with one toon and then doing the exact same thing a few days later with another toon. Getting to level 20 is great fun, I took a couple through Darklight Woods and another through Timorous Deep, but once you’re past the newbie zone you’re funneled back into the same mid-level zones we’ve been using for ages. If only Kunark had covered the entire level range there’d be something new to keep me more interested at these levels.

Skullpoker Rules

kalamaf — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:24:41 +0000

He dies a lot, but then necros aren’t exactly afraid of death. Lately I’ve been playing my rat necro, Skullpoker, and in the last couple days I’ve taken him from level 20 to 23 just hanging around the docks in Thundering Steppes. It’s time to head back to civilization though and hit the broker for some new gear. Mastercraft armor and some type of diamond rings or whatever gem is appropriate for the mid-20′s.

Kalamaf the Tanking Cleric

kalamaf — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:34:41 +0000

So last night I decided to pop into EQ2 and join ‘raid night’, we had 5 people online, but no tank since most of them were playing alts. I don’t have any alts high enough so I just went with Kal. They were taking the alts through Mistmoore Catacombs to finish up some quests and since I still needed a few things as well I headed over there.

Being 75 most of the mobs would have been gray to me anyway, so it’s not like they hurt much, the biggest problem was with holding aggro. Mindsplitter had some nice buffs to increase casting speed and reuse timers so by chain nuking I was able to keep things pretty pissed off with me and we tore through the place with little problem. Cheezy Gonzales (Cheezum, our Fury) died several times as usual since he’s only 63, just a bite sized speed bump to most of those ^^^ heroic mobs.

After taking down the blood golems & bloodbeaks we went up to the werewolves and took down 3 of the named mobs, no good loot dropped though. Since that was so easy we headed up the pillar to the vampires to try our luck with the Butler, on the way I dinged 76 and just as we were about to give up waiting, he popped and was quickly murdered. Again though, no good loot. Overall it was a fun evening and after being 75 for a month I’ve finally gotten over that hump. Dinged AA 109 as well.