Saturday, October 20, 2001

EverQuest - Hunting wisps in Erud's Crossing

DONG! 13 DING! 14 - it's not a good thing to pull a pair of willowisps on Erud's Island and then go link dead before you can direct the battle (plus I was backing up at the moment I went link dead, so my mindless body kept walking backward until EQ decided that I was complete LD and killed the session). I still haven't tracked down why I get these 'bouts' of the machine locking up when playing EQ (it seems to be sound card related, because the sound will suddenly go into a loop), but I fixed it last night by reinstalling my audio drivers. So I spent 2 or 3 hrs last night at abortive attempts to play EQ because my machine would lock up after only a few minutes of play (I don't know how many times my body made the round-trip on the boat while I was off-line). Of course, the worst thing about dying is doing your corpse run, but it's even worse when you get back to where you thought you died only to find that your body has walked away somewhere else. If we had been in the woods, I'd have just run around until I found my body, but it looked like it was out in the ocean (backed right down the beach into the surf) and I'm still afraid of the water in EQ (sharks, nasty fish, drowning). I walked all around the edge of the water, using the summon corpse command (which has a range of about 50'), but was just not getting anywhere. Finally, a kind soul took pity on me and came over to swim in the surf with me looking for my body (she had better luck than I did, plus she still had all of her weapons and armor). I offered her 10pp for her time, but she turned me down.

So I need to work on my swimming in EQ so I don't get stuck in that situation again. It's not really that I mind swimming, but not knowing where my body was really the tough part. I figured I'd have to bribe one of the caster classes with a 'find corpse' spell to come out to the zone and help me find it.

The second problem of the evening came when I was making the run from Qeynos to N Karana to see the gypsies and turn in the 8 Greater Lightstones (GLS) that I had looted off of the wisps on Erud's Island. I made myself invisible outside of the city gates and started the long run, ready to recast invisible when it wore off. In fact, the trip out to N Karana was pretty uneventful and I spent almost the entire W Karana portion making a wizard nervous because he heard footsteps but didn't see anything. (I had tried hailing him early on, but he ignored my tell.) It was a 20 minute run (no Spirit of the Wolf) from Qeynos to the gypsy camp in N Karana. I had made it to the gypsy camp, turned off invisible and was dealing with the gypsy NPCs to turn in my GLS and get a Concordance of Research (which sells for about 8pp) when I got jumped by a grizzly bear.

Okay, replace the word 'jumped' with 'jumped, mauled, crushed, bitten, deaded' and that would accurately describe the event. I made a serious tactical error not immediately casting a pet when I got to the gypsy camp and was going to not be invisible and more. At least I could have aggro'd the bear on the pet while I casted Gate to evac myself. By the time I realized that the bear was attacking me, it had already got in a pair of 20+ hp attacks. I immediately yelled for help (but nobody was around) and tried to cast Shock of Blades or Gate or Invisible (if I could have gotten either of the last 2 off I would have been okay).

So began my second long corpse run of the evening (remember that it took 20 min to run all the way out there). This time I stopped at the bank to get some platinum, stopped at the jeweler for the Malachite to cast my pets and set off again for N Karana (running invisible all the way until I zoned into N Karana). As soon as I got into N Karana, I cast my pet, equipped him and myself with weapons, and started back down to the gypsy camp (trying to look 6 ways at once). There's a lot of 'random death' roaming the N Karana plain, like lions, grizzlies, gryphons, hill giants, so you have to zoom way out on the chase view and keep an eye on the horizon. When I got back to the gypsy camp this time, I was doing my business and watching a critter walk through the middle of the camp every minute (it was do a little transaction, see critter, move to safe spot, wait for critter to finish walking through the camp, go back and do next transaction). In fact, I still got jumped by another grizzly right when I got to the gypsy camp (this time I had my pet out and took the grizzly in a few short minutes). The scary part of N Karana is that there's no place to safely sit and meditate when you're low on mana and in the middle of the zone. So as soon as I finished trading in my GLS for the CoR I gated back to Qeynos figuring I'd sell the CoRs later (in fact I went to Erud's Island where I had better faction with the merchants).

After that I took the boat back to Odus so that I could meet up with Jarius at Kerra Isle which is my next hunting spot. I'm planning on hunting the wharf rats at the docks since I'm still 'indifferent' to the Kerran's, and theres a bit wharf rat that drops a tooth that you can turn in for increased faction with the Kerrans (which is good because I'm planning on killing some Kerrans for particular loot drops) but I don't want to be KoS by the Kerrans. Plus, there's a 20% experience bonus on Kerra Isle (because it's so far out of the way, I'm now as far from Ak'Anon as I figure I can be). However, the one wharf rat cons yellow to me (very risky battle) and I died the first time I took it on (bad tactics on my part). After figuring out a good plan of attack though, I've taken it down 3 more times before I logged off for the night (so it will be really good exp with the bonus and being a yellow).

Once I get up another level or two and have finished hunting Kerrans for the good drops, I'm going back to N Karana to hunt a certain NPC there (who has a good loot drop that I want) and then down to the Rathe Mountains to hunt 'Lizard Man Mystic' creatures that have a nice weight reducing bag. So it will be another week or two of real time before I figure I'll be back in Faydwer.

Vorish of Morell-Thule, High Elf Mage lvl 14

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:44 AM

Friday, October 19, 2001

Everquest Tips

Allakhazam's combat tips - Good intro to group fighting concepts
Shane's EQ Group Strategies - More advanced group tactics
EQ'Lizer - Picking the class that's right for you - self-explanatory


posted by Wuphon's Reach at 3:45 PM

EverQuest - Hunting wisps

DING! I made level 14 last night, soloing willowisps on the island in Erud's Crossing (between the continent of Odus and the continent of Antonica). I also looted 7 Greater Lightstones (GLS) that can be turned in for a quest in the Northern Plains of Karana, I should end up clearing around 8pp per GLS (or about 50-60pp). I did die once last night as I had a bad pull that end with 4 of the wisps attacking me and my pet at the same time. I've found that the best way to pull wisps on the island is to stand on the beach by the ogre and wait for the wisps to come to the statue (you can see them coming if you stand on the beach, and you can spot any additionals that might be hanging around). I usually tagged them with Shock of Blades, then backed up until I was almost to the water (or until the wisp caught up with me). This would take the fight far enough away from the normal wisp 'flight patterns' so that I wouldn't get additionals jumping in (I consider this to be 'hunting intelligently' not 'cheating' because it uses knowledge of the wisp's movement patterns to avoid problems). Everything else on the island causes you to lose faction with the merchants, and I wasn't big enough to take on the ogre (a named NPC). I've also heard that killing the beetles causes nastier stuff to spawn in the middle of the island (but it was perfectly safe for a level 12 character and pet to walk around when I was there, nothing seemed aggresive at all).

My brother wants a better axe for his Paladin Dwarf, well here's Allakhazahm's list of axes. He has his heart set on the Minotaur Battle Axe, which is one of the best 1HS axes that I've seen listed. When looking at melee weapons, most people compare the damage vs delay ratio (dly/dmg) and lower ratios are better (I've seen them as low as 2.000 which is supposedly really good). I've pulled some of the more accessible items (to a dwarf from Butcherblock Mountains):

Battle Axe - 1HS, dmg 7, dly 35 (5.000 ratio)
Forged Battle Axe - 1HS, dmg 7, dly 34 (4.857 ratio)
Minotaur Battle Axe - 1HS, dmg 8, dly 37 (4.625 ratio)

Bronze Two Handed Battle Axe - 2HS, dmg 9, dly 46 (5.111 ratio)
Two Handed Battle Axe - 2HS, dmg 12, dly 44 (3.666 ratio)
Two Handed Dwarven Axe - 2HS, dmg 14, dly 43 (3.071 ratio)
Well Balanced Two Handed Axe - 2HS, dmg 16, dly 48 (3.000 ratio)
Northman Battle Axe - 2HS, dmg 16, dly 48 (3.000 ratio)
Double Bladed Bone Axe - 2HS, dmg 18, dly 48 (2.666 ratio) MAGIC

Tonight's plan is to walk to N Karana and turn in my GLS for the reward. This will not be a walk in the park to get there either. The Western Plains of Karana and the Northern Plains of Karana are both moderately dangerous, so I make make the trip by casting invisible on myself. Both zones have monsters that start around level 4 or level 10 and go up past level 30. So I'm not planning on doing any hunting on this trip (unless I get a local guide).

Vorish of Morell-Thule, High Elf Mage lvl 14

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 10:58 AM

Thursday, October 18, 2001

EverQuest - From Steamfont to Toxxulia Forest in one jump

First, some random quotes...

"Meddle not in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle, and quick to anger." -- Sam, 'Lord of the Rings' (yes, I found the quote's source)

But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

"I've got starfish down my pants!" "You and your hobbies." - Gonzo and Rezo the Rat in Muppet Treasure Island

DING! Made level 13 last night (now my pet bashes for 16 pts of damage, usually twice for every hit the monster gets, especially when my pet is buffed with the Burnout spell). Spent the start of the evening collecting one more batch of Crushbone Belts to take to Canloe Nusbeck in Kaldim for experience (ended up turning in 28 or 32 belts).

After that I wandered back to the Minotaur Valley in the Steamfont Mountains to hunt Rogue Clockworks, Steam Elementals, Earth Elementals, Lesser Ebon Drakes, Harpies, or anything else that would '/consider' blue or even. Jarius (Wood Elf Druid, lvl 14) joined me after a while and the two of us pulled almost non-stop for about 1 1/2 hours. Unfortunately, he got stomped by the Minotaur Lord early in the 1 1/2 hrs, so I had to pull by myself (at a slower pace) while I waited for him to come back from his bind point in the Butcherblock Mountains (a long way away). We probably tagged almost 2 bubbles of experience by the time we were done.

We were sitting around medding up and discussing good hunting spots for mid-teen players. I mentioned hunting wisps on Erud's Island (a long way from Steamfont), and he suggested some other places also on the continent of Odus (which is where Erud's Island is located). My only concern was that I wouldn't be able to shop or bank there, but he assured me that there were both good and evil towns on the continent. Somehow Jarius lined up a teleport for the two of us to travel directly from Steamfont Mountains to the Toxxulia Forest (he had a higher level player named Munnen transport us). So instead of a very long walk (which I was sorta looking forward to), I got a fast teleport to about as far away from Ak'Anon as you can get in the land of Norrath.

So I'll probably explore around here, hunt wisps, gain a level or 3 before taking the slow way back to Faydwer. I doubt I'll make it back to the continent of Faydwer for at least a week or two now (some of the zones that I have to walk through to get back are level 20+). If Jarius logs in tonight or tomorrow, we'll probably group up again and maybe go dungeon crawling (I need to check my pet control keys first).

I'm looking forward to my level 16 spells, they should let me seriously expand my damage output and protect myself better. Also, I get a new, more powerful pet (this time I'll probably buy all 4 pet types).

Phantom Leather - +AC 8-9, increased health regen, uses Cat's Eye Agates
Shielding - +HP 46-50, +MagicResist 12, +AC 12-14
Shock of Flame - fire based direct damage (DD) 91-97 hp for only 70 mana (this is a serious upgrade from my current staple, Shock of Blades, which only hits for 30-35 hp)
Staff of Warding - dmg 8 dly 38

Vorish of Morell-Thule, High Elf Mage lvl 13

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:57 AM

Wednesday, October 17, 2001

Odd quote of the day

When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.
("When cryptography is outlawed only outlaws will have privacy")

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:24 AM

EverQuest - Vorish of Morell-Thule, High Elf Mage lvl 12

Uggh, I'm not sure if it was my computer or something between me and the EverQuest servers last night, but I went link dead 4 times in the space of an hour (I'm going to try again in a few minutes to see if it was a temporary problem or if something is hosed on my computer system). So I didn't get a chance to give my brother his present that I got from the NPC in Kaladim for turning in the ogre heads.

On the plus side, by doing the various quests last night (Crushbone Orc Belts, Ogre Heads) I'm within 1 bubble of level 13. The Ogre Heads were only about 1/4-1/2 bubble of experience, and the 3 backpacks full of Crushbone Belts (24 belts) gave me about 1 1/2 bubbles of experience (okay, but not fabulous). I still have to take the Basilisk Tongues down to Ak'Anon to try and get experience there.

Once I hit level 13, it's going to be very difficult to find things that con blue or even on the continent of Faydwer, so I'm going to have to really start digging into the various nooks and crannies in Steamfont and Butcherblock (or adventure into Crushbone or Lesser Faydark by myself). Maybe I'll go hunt the Minotaurs in Steamfont or the ogres in Butcherblock. More likely is that I will be heading to the desert of Ro or exploring the Ocean of Tears.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 7:36 AM

Monday, October 15, 2001

EverQuest - Vorish of Morell-Thule, High Elf Mage lvl 12

"Do not meddle in the affairs of magicians, for they are subtle, and quick to anger."

Took my first boat ride to the main continent of Antionica and back over the weekend. Charcon had this idea that the two of us could travel to the Desert of Ro or the Oasis of Marr to do some hunting, however a level 9 Gnome Wizard and a level 12 High Elf Magician is not a big enough or strong enough group to adventure there in anything that would remotely be called safely. We both perished with 30 minutes of hitting the Oasis of Marr zone before I decided to call it quits for the night and head back to the town Freeport to camp. When I logged in the next day, I immediately took the boat back to the continent of Faydwer where I was more comfortable with the surroundings (and the dangers).

I spent most of the weekend either doing the 'tourist mage' thing or keeping an eye on the young ones up on 'orc hill' in Greater Faydark (loc +1900,-100). In fact I spent quite a while on Saturday night up there rescuing people or helping out groups that had been overrun with 'adds' (additional critters that jump into an existing fight). The high point of the evening was chatting with Calasandra (a level 35 Paladin) who was also keeping an eye on the little ones attempting to take and hold the hill. She gave me a few pointers and then suddenly bestowed a give of 30pp on me for my good deeds (I had earlier explained that I was 'farming' orc hill when it was deserted in order to get loot that I could sell to finish buying the rest of my level 12 spells at 7pp each). So between selling the loot and the generous gift from Calasandra, I made about a 50pp profit (which is more money than I'd ever seen) in the space of a few hours (I made 15pp or 20pp just on selling Crushbone Belts to players who needed to do a faction quest).

The rest of the time, I spent wandering around Steamfont Mountains, Greater Faydark and Butcherblock Mountains looking for things that were worth killing for experience. As a level 12, there's not much left that a solo player can take for experience. Most of the upper level critters are in camps or in caves (like the Minotaurs) and it's too easy to pull multiple critters and get in over your head if you're not hunting in a group. The few good solo spots are usually camped (like the chessboard in Butcherblock Mountains).

The scariest moment in my poking around the dark corners of Butcherblock Mountains was when I stuck my head into a valley in the middle of Butcherblock Mountains and was immediately jumped by 3 Enraged Goblins (which con'd red to me). I didn't even know they were there before they started attacking me and my pet (my pet had one, I had two). As soon as I considered them and saw that they were way above me (which is what 'con red' means in EQ lingo) I started casting Gate to do a quick evac. It took 24 seconds of battle before I started casting Gate (very slow reflexes) but I was lucky and the spell went off without a hitch and I popped back to my starting location with only 20% of my hit points left (funny thing is, my pet was still alive when I gated). I then spent a few minutes sitting up on the platforms in the city of Kelethin catching my breath and bandaging my wounds.

I did meet up with Charcon when he returned to the mainland, but we couldn't find a good place to hunt in Butcherblock Mountains and I wasn't ready to go back to Steamfont Mountains. Charcon was also in a mouthy mood, doing zone wide shouts of 'GNOME POWER' which would tick off the local dwarves who would then shout 'DWARF POWER' (I was starting to debate disbanding the group and putting him on my /ignore list). However, Charcon went link dead while we were exploring the mountains so I spent the rest of Sunday afternoon soloing Butcherblock Mountains.

About 2:30p or so, I decided that it was time to wander back into Greater Faydark, and perhaps stick my nose into Crushbone and see what it was like. You have to understand, after a magician zones, it takes a few minutes of concentration to recast a pet, equip the pet, get my spells in order and make sure that I'm ready to travel. So I'm very much concerned with caster matters after I zone and don't pay attention to anything else for a few minutes. (Sorta like the time between I get up in the morning and I have that first cup of coffee.) I also have learned to travel in 'role-playing' mode which indicates that if you want something from me, you had better ask nicely and speak like the character that you are playing; also, the upper level caster classes tend to get begged to death by lower level players looking for buffing spells or asking to have their bind points set in the new location. As a result, upper level players tend to travel incognito in order to have some peace and quiet. (Come stand in the middle of Greater Faydark and listen for the shouts of 'I need a sow' or 'I need a bind' from all of the beggars.)

Sure enough, as soon as I got into the Greater Faydark zone (and I'm sitting in the entrance doing my new zone habits), I get accosted by a dwarf who says 'Leaving my mountains so fast?'. I sorta opened one eye to glare at him and went back to my meditation and flipping through my spell book. He persisted though ('Tired of the skunks?' ... 'Hey'), so without looking up from my spell book I said 'not much that still gives exp' (in answer to why I was leaving his mountains). As a High Elf, it's my duty to despise small mouthy dwarfs, especially ones who interrupt me when I'm going about my caster affairs (that mere mortals know nothing of). I saw that Qpdaj was travelling anonymously, so I did consider him but saw that he came up green (at this point, I had him pegged as a probable beggar and was looking to get rid of him). He continued to persist, 'Don't get too friendly, bro', (I'm getting more annoyed at this point). I replied 'what are you going to hunt here in our dark woods?' (trying to stay in character). He replied 'No, I'm still building up in my mountains. Though I'm sick of skunks.' to which I replied 'you may want to try orc pawns on for size (or even get into a group up at orc hill)' (again, I was still trying to get rid of him so I could finish my zone preparation). Then came the begging 'I'm only level six, and I need a decent weapon. I'm saving my pennies.', so I told him to hunt Orc Pawns and Orc Centurions who would drop weapons or stuff that he could sell. This whole conversation that I was trying to ignore went on for almost 5 minutes before I mentally translated the name 'Qpdaj' into 'Quilpuuxla Daj' which is my brother's online alias. (Finally, the light bulb clicks on ... told you I was not really paying attention. I didn't even know that he had started playing the game.) I gave him an escort to Kelethin and a bind at the 'orc lift' on the north side of town (for free, the normal donation rate is approximately the players's level divided by 3-6).

Later on that night I did some spotting (watching him fight, taking the adds when he pulled too many) and found his corpse once and taught him a few of the ropes (like knowing to have a hot key mapped to the /yell and the /loc commands so you can get help and find your corpse later, in fact it's best if your 'Yell' hotkey does both commands at the same time, just put the two commands on separate lines when you edit the social button). Greater Faydark has very few landmarks (mostly all you can see are trees and more trees, you never see the sky or distant objects) so if you don't know the location of where you died, it can be a long drawn out process to find your corpse (unless you can beg a cast who has corpse finding spells to help you search).

I did visit Crushbone, but my pet had serious pathing issues. Instead of sitting calmly in front of me, it would pace back and forth and when I would move from point A to point B it would travel through C, D, and E to get to me. Maybe it was just freaked out due to being so close to Lord Crush (the evil high level Orc in the castle), but a skitzy pet is not a good thing when you're wanting to solo an area that is crawling with Orcs who will gang up on you. I've already died once before because I started a fight, gave my pet the command to attack and then realized that my pet was taking a long detour somewhere else in the zone (I immediately concentrated on nuking my target as fast as possible instead of conserving my mana). So I won't go back to Crushbone unless it's part of a group who understands that I will need to have time when we get to the hunting point to cast and equip my pet because I can't travel with it through the zone.

It was dissapointing to watch the action up on 'orc hill' in Greater Faydark last night. None of the young ones had the common sense to form a group and sit on top of orc hill and have a single puller 'pull' the orcs up to the top of the hill. In fact, there were between 3 and 10 young players running all around creating trains and doing a good bit of dying (and losing experience) when if they had formed a group, most of them could have gained a level within and hour or two. My brother tried a few times to get into a group, but I don't know if he ever succeeded. The key point to remember is, if you don't learn good grouping skills at the lower levels, nobody will want to group with you at the higher levels (where you have to group if you want to gain experience at a decent rate). In fact, the first 20 levels are when you make all of your friends (or at least a list of people who will seek you out for groups). Doing a group up on orc hill is also the best fun that you can have as a level 5-8 player, the kills come quick (at 5:1 odds or even 5:3 odds with a pair of adds), the experience racks up fast, there's very little downtime because nobody is getting beat to death. The thing that usually breaks up a group on orc hill is having to head back to town because you're encumbered with all of the loot (the better groups start taking turns, sending one player back to town at a time while they stay and fight). Sigh I may need to spend some time up on 'orc hill' tutoring the young ones in the reasons to group.

Another thing that young players seem to not know is that upper level players will stand and watch you die unless you '/yell' for help (in fact, you may want to yell early and yell again in a few seconds). The reason for this seemingly cold-blooded 'stand and watch' behavior is not because it's fun to watch a young player die (in fact, upper level players have vivid memories of being on the wrong side of a 3:1 encounter), but because if they step in and kill those 2 or 3 critters that are ganging up on you they'll likely do the most damage and you'll get zero experience for the kill. (Less pleasant players will then berate the elder player for stealing their kill (or 'KS' kill-stealing), when the elder player was just trying to keep the younger player from dying.)

I was watching a fight back when I was a level 9, and this solo warrior was getting added on every few seconds. He was managing to take everything, but I was watching his health bar drop after each orc and it was looking like he was about to finally lose it (he was down to around 20%). I kept waiting for him to yell and finally just gave in and nuked the last Orc off of him so that he could catch a break in the action. He was not happy for the help and he did not have the courtesy to express his unhappiness in a considerate way. So now, he's on my list of people who I will watch die, even if they yell for help (I remember his character if not his name).

So now, I usually just stand by a fight, perhaps sending the person a '/tell' that if they need help that they just need to '/yell'. It's usually pretty easy to tell whether a player is going to pull it off or not by watching the health bar of the creature that they're fighting and the player's health bar. In fact, I've had better success with this method with the younger players because it lets them know that someone is watching but won't interfere and what they need to do to ask for help. The next time you're fighting something hairy, don't be surprised if you see a higher level player standing and watching, waiting to see if you're smart enough to know when to yell for help. I watched a lot of players last night that seemed to prefer dying than yell for help (or form a group to take on a camp). I would be willing to bet that either they will never get into a group situation, or if the do form a group with others like them that group will end in disaster more often than success. But then, maybe that's just my feelings on how to be a good group member.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:15 AM