Ald Demo

During my leveling process, i fell in love with Mik Scrolling Battle Text.  It uncluttered all my damage numbers and condensed them into one simple frame.  Since i like minimal with less clutter, it was a perfect fit for my UI setup.  That is until i started doing some raids and reassessing my UI needs and layout functionality.

I realized how much i missed seeing damage numbers on top of enemy heads.  This was even more evident on trash pulls and adds.  Being able to see all the mobs i have dots rolling on individually is a lot more visual and intuitive than having them all combined together into one area.  Of course this creates a massive clusterfuck on my screen when there's lots of mobs but i actually seem to prefer it for this specific situation.

The other issue i had was how much i couldn't stand the default floating combat text font.  Not only is it a boring style but looked quite pixelated as well.  Well hurray for Font Damage Changer which let me change the text to any one of the hundred or so fonts i happen to already have for Photoshop projects.  Now my problem lies in actually choosing which one i like more than the next and sticking to it for more than a few hours.

Floydian Normal

Levi Rebrushed

Shogun's Clan

Double Feature

After taking my sweet time, my frost DK finally hit the magical level cap.  I think i get the playstyle and overall requirements of the class to finally get into some more difficult content and, dare i say, raiding.  For now i think i'll run around Timeless Isle and gear up through the chests scattered all over the island.  I hear many deaths are awaiting me as i do that though so we'll see.  I'm rocking pretty much all quest greens so i have no doubts about that.  I also managed to snag a new mount which i'm assuming is the official "dk mount".  Onward to my treasure chests i go.

As I've mentioned previously, i'm a huge fan of desert zones in my MMO's.  It was no secret i couldn't wait to get to Uldum for the first time.  I was curious how WoW implemented and handled my favorite MMO climate.  What came as a surprise once i began questing there was entire Indiana Jones tie in.  It was completely unexpected but i guess I've been living under a rock for nine years.

Since i'm a huge fan of both Indie and deserts, it should be no surprise i loved Uldum.  Loved every second of almost every quest there.  I was bummed to see that the exp range for the zone only covered one level.  I managed to stretch it out to a level and a half by doing everything minus the dungeons.  I'll probably go back and mess with them later.  For now it's off to Pandaland, monkeys, and possibly snakes.  Why'd it have to be snakes?

I always play a human in every MMO since completely regretting not playing one for 6 years during my FFXI days.  It was obvious that to play one in WoW i would have to roll with Alliance.  Since i knew nothing of either side, i didn't even give it a second thought.  That was until everyone i know informed me of the error in my ways.  I was bombarded with "no one plays alliance!" and so on and so forth.  It seemed like lots of people play them from where i was standing so i wrote it off as faction pride.

Then i did the unthinkable - i rerolled from human!  It made me sick to my stomach at first to be quite honest but since everyone i know plays/played  Horde, it made the decision much easier.  I typically can't get into my characters if they're some funky race i can't identify with and Horde sure does have a lot of those. Fortunately for me, there are blood elves, which look as least close enough to humans that i can manage.

I went from the heavily Alliance server of Stromrage to the opposite spectrum on Area-52.  While it's still taking some getting used to, i can say that i am enjoying the blood elf combat animations.  I'm assuming they're different right?  They seem so to me at least.  Thanks to a generous loan i managed to get my flying license along with my first flying mount.  It's sure made a difference in the speed of which i can complete quests.  It helps being able to avoid aggroing everything like i tend to do!  I mean, who can say no to a flying lion?  I'm going to ignore the fact that i normally am not a fan of flying mounts.

Come say hi to Aldee on Area-52.  I'll probably be running back to my corpse after pulling one too many mobs.  It's hilarious playing a 9 year old game for the first time.

When i first began playing EQ2 and started looking for a UI replacement for the ugly default one, i turned to ProfitUI much like everyone else.  Ironically, this sort of went against my minimalist preferences when it comes to UI's in general.  While it eliminated certain frames such as the SoE bar, it also introduced many others.

Original layout

Updated layout

Current layout

• Profit UI
• EQ2 Map
• Wildsongs Target
• RickF7666 Casting Breath Windows
• DrumsUI Bag
• DrumsUI Maintained

Thanks to the holiday, i had a lot of time to get some leveling done in WoW.  It didn't take me long to obliterate my previous high level of 8.  It must have taken some serious dedication to get up to that stratospheric level a few years ago.  All jokes aside, i actually stuck with it this time and managed to hit 55 on my Hunter.  That was pretty much the goal i was trying to hit before the weekend ended.  Now i can retire Hunter for a while and concentrate on Death Knight til cap and beyond.  Hopefully it doesn't take me long to get used to the new play style after 55 levels of letting my pet do everything.

Yes yes yes technically they're called cloaks but, let's be honest, these are capes.  LOTRO has the actual cloaks covered while EQ2 has the hoodless cloaks, or capes.  Either way, i love both and make it a habit of collecting as many variations as i can.  Sure it may kill my inventory and bag space but i could care less as long as i collect them all!

I currently have 30 cloaks sitting in my bag for when i feel the need to change up my appearance.  This actually happens quite often as i get bored of the same look every day.  The majority (90%) are from quest rewards or drops from dungeons. A few of them i purchased off the broker really cheap and one is a perk from pre-ordering the expansion which drops tomorrow.

Unfortunately, and as with every cash shop type MMO, all the best looking cloaks are only available through the Station Cash store.  As tempting as some of the models on there are, i'm avoiding them for now.  I'm not sure why considering my actual armor skin is from the shop but the cloak will have to wait.  Hopefully the expansion has a few more quested cloaks i can add to my collection.

Continuing on with my advanced solo rounds brings me to Throne of Fear.  Imps, eyeballs, and my mercenary being his typical useful self.  By that of course i mean being completely useless as only they can. I'm starting to notice their lacking as the levels get beyond 90 but at least they bring some comedy relief once in a while.

I figured it was about time i select my deity in EQ2.  Normally this quest is started at level 25 but i put it off until level 90 for some unknown reason.  Out of all the possible options i decided to go with Anashti Sul which seemed to fit my Shadowknight best.  She provides a buff that increases my spell damage along with boosting base stats in the form of a pet servant.  I tend to just hide pets since I'm not a fan but i still get to maintain the permanent buff.  She also provides a list of ten short duration and long cool-down buffs which i will not get into now.

One of the first things i talked myself into doing once i upgraded my character to a heroic version was to unlock and hire a mercenary.  I decided to go with Stamper Jeralf which should be no shock to anyone I'd imagine.  It seems to be the most popular and used mercenary and with good reason.  He's a Ratonga Inquisitor which meshes well with my Shadowknight.  He heals, cures, and rezzes my butt when i go overboard with how many mobs i think i can pull.

There were some other options i considered briefly but in the end i went with Inquisitor.  With my current gear and basically only having mostly adept level spells, a healer just works for what i can do.  Sometimes all those life leeches i have are simply not enough, but that may also be due to my insistence on overdoing it in every situation!

I of course had to change his name to Didymus since i love Labyrinth.  Using some of the random drops i had accumulated and tossing them on him made him look somewhat respectable.  If anything, it hides his ratness!  Now if he could only talk me out of trying to fight mobs ten levels above me, we'd be golden.

Shortly after completing my Sedition, a few of us began work on the Epic Repercussions quest chain to upgrade our fabled weapons to the mythical versions.  Little did i know that the quest i just completed to obtain the epic weapon itself can be completely bypasses now before the upgrade.  Something i wish i knew before all the time spent doing the first part but i digress.  While these weapons are essentially just for looks at this point, the buffs that come with them are the reason for doing the chain.  They seem pretty ridiculous to me.


The quest chain itself seemed pretty short until i realized all the prerequisites that were required.  Before i could even start i had to go back and learn the dragons language.  In order to learn that language, i had to go back and learn the giants language!  Then came the Fiery Jewel of the Underfoot quest.  Those 3 quests took the better half of Saturday to complete, but i was ready to run some dungeons for the final chain.

It amazes me how much fun doing quests like this can be when you actually get to run dungeons with friends instead of running around solo for hours doing prerequisites and all the back and forth stuff.  We got our butts kicked for a few hours having to rely on my healer mercenary to keep us alive, but it was tons of fun. The end result was a glowing red sword to match, well, nothing else on me!