Ald Demo

November 2013

World of...What?

At one point i considered myself the biggest anti WoW advocate there was, despite never giving the game a chance. It was around three years ago that i was talked into giving the free trial a go for the first time but i could never get over the art style. I've always preferred the eastern art direction to MMO's and still do really. Of course those games tend to suffer from an all style and no substance approach that never seems to last.

Well today i did something i said i would never do. I'm giving WoW another crack and actually leveling past 5 this time. Blizzard has a black Friday sale going on for $4.99 for the full game and $9.99 for MoP. I figured for 15 bucks, how could i go wrong? If anything i get 30 days worth of entertainment for for that low price.

Unfortunately for me, the class i really want to play is unavailable until i get another class to 55 first. I'm speaking of Death Knight of course. Coming from Dark Knight in FFXI and onto ShadowKnight in EQ2, the class and play style really fits what i enjoy. For now i selected a Hunter to level until i hit that magic level where i can swap over to DK. Hopefully i don't embarrass myself on the way!

I almost never play a female character unless it's a Korean MMO. You're almost required to in those games since 95% of the playerbase seems to play them and, in all honesty, they look really good. I rolled a female human for now until i can go human male for DK. Yeah yeah - I always play as a boring human since none of the other races really ever appeal to me. Here's to hoping i make it to 55.

No Luck

9:29 PM Everquest 2 , The Nexus Core

I've been running the Nexus Core advanced solo for about a week now. It seems to be the zone that drops weapons, among other items of course. What I've been trying to acquire is a sword or great sword upgrade of some kind. As per my typical luck, or lack there of, I've been cursed with bow after bow after bow. It's actually kind of hilarious at this point. I don't even look at the loot chest anymore since it's been a bow of some kind so often. I'll be in complete shock when a sword actually does drop. For now, I'm at 7 bows and 3 hammers.

What is Wildstar?

11:17 AM Wildstar

With winter beta around the corner, i figured i'd start talking about Wildstar a little more. By that i mean talking about it at all of course. I planned on being pretty quiet about it until i actually got a chance to play and see if my interest continued. What the hell though!

My initial reaction was fairly negative right off the bat mostly due to the art style. After all, it's the same reason i could never get into or take WoW seriously. It certainly has grown on me in the last year to the point that i can overlook it and focus on other aspects. Those aspects are what I'm really interested in and hope to try out in a month or so, provided i actually get into the beta. For now, a few videos to hold me over until then.

Shadowknight Samurai

5:10 PM Everquest 2

It's official. I'm now a Shadowknight Samurai after completing the new armor quest chain in Vesspyr Isles. That along with my katana pushes me over the top of ridiculousness. I love it though so all is good. Speaking of ridiculous - the stat explosion in this expansion is just that. I went from 70,000 HP to close to 400,000 in full tank gear. It's absolutely crazy across the board mob wise as well. Time to start working on the new advanced solo zones for yet more upgrades.

Also hurray for another new mount from the quest chain as well. It looks sort of creepy instead of badass or scary but a free mount is a free mount. Fear the samurai on the back of the froglizardbat flying above your head!

Expansion Day

7:19 AM Everquest 2 , Tears of Veeshan

Tuesday marked the release of EQ2's 10th expansion - Tears of Veeshan. With it came a ridiculous amount of changes to stats along with more stat explosion. The list of new stuff is too long to list here so I'll just mention the core features. Full info can be found here.

New class – Channeler
New Dragon-themed AAs
AA limit increased to 340
New overland area, Vesspyr Isles
9 new dungeons
2 new raid zones
More Tradeskill and Tradeskill Apprentice Items
New PvP item tier

The new overland zone is a bunch of floating islands, which I've always loved. Sure it's been knocked a bit for repeating the same theme as the Kingdom of Sky expansion, but it's to be expected. Let's see if it's as fun as that zone. Time to completely re-gear and probably respec my AA's.

Cape Town

8:27 PM Capes , Cloaks , Everquest 2

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.

Disc of Dreadful Omens

6:49 AM Disc of Dreadful Omens , Everquest 2

After 30 days of accumulating daily reward tokens, i had enough to blow on a bunch of interesting items.

My options were between a few large capacity bags, the seven year veteran reward prestige home, and a selection of flying disc mounts. There were a lot of other options but none i really even considered. It took everything within me to not select the prestige house and instead go with one of the four mounts. I chose the one disc that i thought went really well with Shadowknight. I'm coming after you, Mistmoore Crags Estate, after another 30!

Throne of Fear

4:52 AM Everquest 2 , Throne of Fear

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.

Sleeper's Tomb

3:12 PM Everquest 2 , Sleeper's Tomb

Another day and another advanced solo under my belt. This time i ventured into the Sleeper's Tomb instance and i now can see why most people don't farm this one for loot. Being my first attempt, as well as not being max level, really slowed down my completion time dramatically. I was making pretty decent time until i hit the final two bosses which i kind of screwed up mechanically. With good gear and max level, I'm sure i could cut this time in half easily at some point down the road. Hurray for play speed options on YouTube.

95

1:12 AM Everquest 2

Thanks to an extremely fun and sometimes crazy Skyshrine group, i managed to hit 95 on my Shadowknight. This makes my first ever max level character of any kind in EQ2. Despite my actual account being over four years old, i never managed to hit cap at any time. This was mostly due to other MMO's i was involved in as well as never having the time to really sink my teeth into EQ2.

I suppose i can sort of thank the free heroic character promotion from last month for getting me motivated to play again. In reality all it did was get me ten levels but that seemed to be enough to get me going and actually stick with it. The largest motivator has definitely been the doing away with of gear unlocking through the cash shop. That's just something that i believe held a lot of players back that were not subscribers. Way to go SoE on that one for sure.

How much am i actually enjoying the game thus far? Well, enough to go ahead and purchase the expansion. Tears of Veeshan will be launching in less than two weeks and i'm ready to go! Ready to pretty much replace all the gear I've acquired through running all these advanced solo instances. The raiders I'm sure have it much worse which is why I'm glad that i will not be getting involved in that yet or probably at all. For pre-ordering the expansion, i got a pretty snazzy new cape. Bring on the new grind!