Saturday, October 27, 2001

EverQuest - My return to Blackburrow and a visit to North Karana

It's been payback time in Blackburrow the past 2 nights. Both evenings, I've teamed up with another level 15 or level 16 player and cleaned out the room that got me killed last weekend. In fact, I met a level 15 rogue who managed to clean the 'Elite' room by herself (this room is also known as the 'green' room). Normally this room spawns 4 gnolls (two of which con blue to me, the other two con green), but when we went back down to retake it after coming up to take a level 23 gnoll (Tranixx Darkpaw) there were the normal 4 plus a gnoll shaman. We retook the room, but it was close (Fanorinea the rogue kept wanting to do all the tanking instead of letting the pet absorb some damage). To give you an idea, we started retaking the green room at 18:21:09 and killed the first one at 19 seconds in (I took the shaman first), the second went down at 58 seconds into the fight, the 3rd at 71 seconds, the 4th at 86 seconds, and the 5th at 105 seconds. It was a very long fight and I was out of mana and had to melee the last gnoll to help finish it off. I concentrated on fire shielding, healing my pet, and using my DD spells on the current target. Once you take the room though, it's a slow spawn (1 or 2 at a time, every 5-10 minutes), so she started pulling from the 'commander' room (which may also be called the 'clover' room?) to our camp spot in the 'elite' room hallway.

The first pull started at 19:26:39, she got back with the train to the hallway at 19:27:08. I was pretty well rested up and my pet was into the fight within 2 seconds, but one of the gnoll guardsman aggro'd on me, so I had to spend precious seconds getting it to aggro on my pet instead. My first offensive spell was a Column of Fire (AoE) which hit 2 of the gnolls for 51pts and 1 of the gnolls for 30pts (not too bad), my second spell was a shield of fire on Fanorinea (I should've done this first) at 19:27:32, the 1st elite gnoll gaurd dropped at 19:27:38 (I should've dropped it sooner), then at 19:27:48 I had another gnoll aggro on me and had to spend a few seconds getting it off (about 10 seconds). The 2nd gnoll (guardsman) dropped at 19:28:06, my pet still had 100 percent of his hit points, but I knew that Fanorinea was hurting (already down below half I think). So I started assisting her, and nuking whatever she was fighting (91pt DD fire spell, eats up mana fast). The 3rd gnoll (elite gnoll guard) dropped at 19:28:20, but Fanorinea died at 19:28:26 leaving me alone with some very ticked off gnolls. At this point, my goal is to keep them aggro'd on my pet, and hope the elite room spawns don't pop at my back. The 4th gnoll (gnoll commander) dropped at 19:28:43 from my pet finishing it off. So I looted the corpses and settled in with my pet to keep the room spawn under control and med up until she came back. (If you don't keep ahead of the spawn rate, I'd have had to leave and we'd have had to break the room again.) It wasn't a bad pull (only 4) and we should've taken it with no deaths (but I learned some doing it).

The second pull started at 19:41:23 and Fanorinea got back to the hallway with a larger train this time at 19:41:31. Again, I immediately got aggro'd by one of them and had to spend 5 seconds getting it off of me before I could cast my Shield of Flame damage spell on Fanorinea. I immediately got jumped a 2nd time and spent another few seconds getting it off of me onto my pet. At 45 seconds into the fight, I was still getting hit (couldn't cast) and my pet was down to 55 percent and Fanorinea was getting beat pretty good (and none of the gnolls were dead yet). It took 2 tries to get Shock of Blades off, and Fanorinea finally put the first gnoll (elite gnoll) down at 19:42:21 (50 seconds in). I switched to assist mode (having finally unaggro'd everything) and burned a gnoll guardsman that was the current target for 91pts. The 2nd gnoll (gnoll guardsman) dropped at 19:42:33, the 3rd gnoll (gnoll commander) dropped at 19:42:36. The 4th gnoll (elite gnoll guard) dropped at 19:42:53, a 5th gnoll (gnoll guardsman) dropped at 19:43:12, a 6th gnoll (gnoll commander) dropped at 19:43:26, and the 7th gnoll (gnoll guardsman) dropped at 19:43:44. Sheer chaos for 2 minutes 13 seconds, but we scraped by (barely, I was out of mana at 19:43:33, Fanorinea was down to 5 percent of her hit points, don't know how ragged my pet was). About 15-20 seconds after we finished, the room popped with 2 gnolls that we quickly took care of.

Once the two of us broke up, I gated back to town, did my shopping, hung out at the newbie gates in N Qeynos and gave away Studded Leather Collars (+3AC +1STR +1STA) to any newbie who came up and poked me. (Boy did I get a quick response!) They came running from all over to poke me for those collars (I could've sold them to the merchant for 1pp or to other players or 4-8pp). I managed to get rid of 3 of the 5 (sold the last two), so I did pretty good.

After that, I got bugged by a newbie (level 2 Enchanter) who claimed he was KoS at his guild, wanted me to help him get his pet. But he wouldn't say more than 2 words in a sentence and was almost rude and abrupt ('follow', 'now!', 'come', 'pet', 'to guild'). I can't decide if he was that poor of a english-speaker, or if he was trying to get me to join his group, then he would go beat on the guards and they would come after me (a form of player-killing). I eventually just went invisible and left the zone.

After wandering around Qeynos Hills for a bit, I went back inside of BB and setup camp at the entrance to watch the lower level players creating trains and running to the zone boundary. A level 15 paladin (Raadian) was also watching the fun, and we grouped up after a bit to share any experience or loot from the gnolls that we killed to save a lower level player. I concentrated on throwing fire shields on anyone who was fighting, and throwing daggers at occupied gnolls to get faction increase with the Qeynos Guards. We spent almost 2 hours, sitting and chatting at the entrance while train after train of gnolls arrived at the station (the biggest might have been 8 or 10 gnolls chasing 3 or 4 players).

About midnight we got bored and decided that since his friends weren't going to show up (he was waiting to transfer some equipment), we should head to the Karanas and get experience for ourselves. It took about 90 minutes to make the run to Qeynos so he could do some banking, met up with his friends, and for us to traverse all the way through W Karana to N Karana (we couldn't find anything to hunt in W Karana). BTW, to get from Qeynos Hills to N Karana, he had us follow the beach at the south edge of the zone in W Karana instead of taking the path (apparently, it's safer). So we were happily killing beetles on a little hill north of the teleportation ring in N Karana (just a little north of the stone bridge on the south edge of the zone), keeping a nervous eye out for Hill Giants and Griffons when about 2am I spotted Grimfeather (a named griffon) to our north. We watched him fly away and went on with our business of killing beetles.

Sure enough, 2 minutes later when we were looking for the next thing to kill, I suddenly get clawed for 86 pts of damage, I'm immediately stunned, then bashed for 21 pts, I get unstunned and it claws me again for 59 pts. My pet managed to aggro it at this point (4 seconds in), but it immediately got clawed 3x for 86 pts, clawed for 46 pts, bashed for 21 pts at which point my pet was dead (325 pts of dmg in 4 seconds). My pet was dead 8 seconds into the fight, I shouted 'run to zone!' to the group, but was immediately set upon before I could find my Gate spell. I got clawed for 37 pts, 44 pts, then 86 pts and I was dead. If I had started casting Gate right when my pet aggro'd, I still woudn't have made it (it's an 8 second spell, GrimFeather was only off of me for 4 seconds). Total elapsed time, 12 seconds. Raadian died shortly after I did (but about halfway to the zone line). Fortunately the corpse runs were easy as we were bound close by and Grimfeather just calmly flew off.

They say that if you can hear Grimfeather's wings beating the air, you're a dead man. I believe it! This does not bode well for me hunting Lt Midraim later in N Karana (with random death stalking the plain). Guess I'll have to just be very careful and keep a nervous finger on the Gate spell key. Still, it was fun and I made my first contact on the continent of Antonica (Raadian has only been playing for a few months as well).

Vorish of Morell-Thule, High Elf Mage lvl 16

Labels: EverQuest

posted by Wuphon's at 1:44 PM

Wednesday, October 24, 2001

Time to step up to bat again

Okay, I'm done being mellow, it's time to get back out on the bike, go on a date, go on a road trip (basically time to make things happen again). Have I been run down the past few weeks, sure, but then name someone on the east coast who hasn't been down in the dumps somewhat since Sep 11th. (Heh, just saw the commercial for Zoloft. Frankly, I'd rather self-medicate with endorphins, it's a whole lot more fun.)

posted by Wuphon's at 9:00 PM

EverQuest - yes it's getting more challenging

I don't think my brother understands that I did think it was humorous that I died deep in the depths of Blackburrow by biting off more than I could chew (2 greens and 2 blues). But there's also the challenge aspect of EQ, some situations are difficult and very rewarding once you overcome them (like getting my body back out of Blackburrow and gating my way home). If it had been really hairy, I'd have been forced to recruit help from other people that I've met over the past few weeks, or hire some local talent (either way it would have fit right in line with what EQ is about). Still, with the long difficult corpse run, it was very gratifying to finish, hit the gate spell, click my heels three times and whistle "there's no place like Qeynos..." (almost a mini-quest).

My last entry was more of "here's where the game changes for a magician class" and I haven't played enough in the new demands (as it gets more difficult) to decide whether it's and adventure and still fun. Eh, I'm probably not explaining myself at all very well, so suffice it to say that if EQ isn't fun, I probably won't play. But playing easy games that are just fun and not challenging lacks the rewarding feeling of taking down that difficult pull where you got more than you wanted but were still able to take control of the situation (or even the fun of getting out by the skin of your teeth, or not).

And no, I haven't played EQ since Sunday (had too much to do and I'm out of town)...

Labels: EverQuest

posted by Wuphon's at 8:14 PM

Home away from home? Well, not quite

It figures that the first trip in a few months would be a bit rought (not counting my vacation travels, which were well planned). I got up to the hotel last evening and found that I had no reservation. Now, this is a hotel that you have to call at least 2-3 weeks in advance to get a reservation, so I'm positive that I would have called (in fact I called my co-worker as soon as I had made my reservation and told him to call and see if he could also get in that same week). But I also didn't write the confirmation number into my calendar like I always do. So I don't know if I goofed or they goofed. Fortunately, I know the staff there well enough (having stayed there every trip of the past year and a half) that the manager was able to get me in a better hotel for just a little bit more money per night (and it's even a better Marriott hotel). So I basically have an efficiency apartment all to myself (including a little kitchen area with breakfast nook) for not much more than a regular hotel room would cost. Frankly, it's overkill for me (I don't eat in the hotel room and I'm traveling by myself). I could do laps in this room if I wanted (it's twice the size of a standard hotel room).

On the downside, I slept no more than 2 hours at a stretch last night... (so I'm pretty tired now).

posted by Wuphon's at 8:03 PM

Monday, October 22, 2001

To Cast My Lot Upon the Wind and Ride the Currents to Wherever

No, that probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but then neither have some of the comments that I heard in the past few days. I can't tell if I'm being subtly asked out, if the gal is just testing the waters, or if it was idle conversation. Of course, this is the gal who was very envious of my vacation plans earlier this year, someone who loves to road trip as much as I do (when it's done on my schedule, which is "I'll get there when I get there, wherever there may be").

So do I freak her out by upping the ante and try to drag the issue out into the open? I mean there's only one way to ever find out if you're compatible and that's by actually dating instead of just thinking about dating. Sometimes though, I get anxious or feelings-of-inadequacy because the gal I like owns a house and I'm still renting. But then, I was in a steady relationship for about 4 years with a gal who already owned a house, so it didn't make any sense for me to go out and buy one. Now that I'm not in that relationship anymore, I'm ready to buy one in the next few years (gotta save up those pennies first!). So I'm not going to let it phase me, I have a plan, I'm just not ready to buy yet.

One of the mistakes that I'll not make again is to put my dreams on hold while hoping that I'm going to fulfill someone else's (it's never a well-fitting role to be cast that way, it always feels like you're walking in someone else's shoes). Yes, I still have dreams, things I want to do, want to see, where I want to live, etc. and it's time to start making those dreams turn into reality, or face looking around in 5 yrs and wondering why I haven't gotten anywhere.

So was "if we were on a road trip, you'd be doing all of the driving" a straight line (there was more than that, but that's the quote that threw me)? Hah, I hope that it's a straight line, because I'm about to give a tug on it and find out what's on the other end of that line. (Or I'll be mortally embarrased because I read intent where the wasn't any. Of course, she'll either say 'yes' or 'no', and I don't think our friendship would suffer grievious harm as a result. I'm just not ready to 'sieze the moment', or the straight line if that was one. I'll be fine as long as I do it casually, and with a hint of interest, but not coming on too strong.)

It's been more than a few months since I stopped dating, so it's not like I'm rushing from one to the next at this point. I've had my manic period (a good long 3 months worth), and now I've had my down period ever since I came back from vacation and got nowhere with the gal that I had been dating before vacation (or attempting to, if you followed any of those follies).

Heh, if you want to know how I've been doing emotionally, ask my dead plants on the back porch who have been thouroughly neglected since I came back from vacation and went into a funk. The mums are attempting to keep themselves alive, but it's a valiant effort that is doomed to failure (I'll put them out of their misery this coming weekend). Besides, it's time to prep for winter.

The only positive note to going away for 2 nights is that I'll get up and use the hotel gym in the mornings (it's a habit when I travel and stay in a hotel). That'll break the exercise doldrums that I've been in for the past few weeks (e.g. zero exercise). I think I'll be up to resume riding when I get back, maybe I should ask this gal if she wants to go bike riding this weekend. (Yeah, that seems safe enough.) Well, maybe not, looks like we might see snow this coming weekend. Ah well, e-mail sent, maybe we can get a foursome together for a road trip. (Bombs away!)

And today's random quote is a list of quotes!

posted by Wuphon's at 10:07 PM

EverQuest - Magician Research, other links

Playing a Role - By Mardyrn of Tarew Marr - Brief essay on how to role play.
Spell Research Trade Supplies - What and where to find them.
Practice Research Quests - How and what to create practice runes.

Labels: EverQuest

posted by Wuphon's at 12:13 PM

Travel Plans - to go or not

I am a little nervous about going up to Long Island this week, but I'm not as worried since I'll be driving up instead of taking the Amtrak train. I really can't put my nerves on any particular thing, like a specific threat, but there's now an increased anxiety in general about travel. But then, I haven't done any traveling out of town since Sep 11th, so I haven't faced these anxieties head on (having been able to avoid them). Don't get me wrong, I love to travel, especially to new places. Most of my travel anxiety has always been focused on making sure I make my train/plane/bus departure times (I'm a bundle of nerves until I'm standing at the platform/gate and know that I'm not going to miss my connection). That's one of the reasons I like public transportation or Amtrak, because even if I miss a connection, I only have to wait about an hour (or less) to catch the next connection. Of course, if I drive to my destination I don't worry as long as I'm not trying to get there at a particular time.

Why all this worry? Because last night I had a travel dream (one of those where you can't find your plane ticket, or you don't remember what your itinerary was, or your not sure how you got to this city or where you're headed next or how). It means I'm nervous about travelling this week, even though it's a short 2-night stay and I'm driving up to Long Island with a co-worker (not sure if I'd rather go by myself or not). I do usually get sick a few days after I get back from a trip (especially if it was long, or stressful), sort of a delayed travel shock I guess. It's never severe enough to make me not want to travel, but it does make me feel run down for a day or two after I get back (and it can't be jet lag since I'm not crossing time zones). I think it's because when I travel up to NYC on the train, it always seems like I'm on the go for about 6 hrs straight (door to door travel time), so maybe that's all it is (to my feeling run down a day or two after a trip).

Eh, I figure I'll be fine once I finish packing and have everything loaded into the car.

posted by Wuphon's at 11:52 AM

Sunday, October 21, 2001

EverQuest - Visiting and Dying in Blackburrow

So begins the more difficult phase of a magician's life when they have to start researching spells (and gathering the components which will be random drops off of critters my level or higher, oh joy). That means I'll need to do a lot of hunting tougher critters (which means exp, but more risk).

The worst part of today was my misadventure into Blackburrow. Almost all of the gnolls con green to me, so we were pretty much on 'I won't kill you if you don't attack me' (my level 16 pet makes short work of most gnolls). So I was walking around, getting jumped very rarely, and got a little too cocky after cleaning out a room of 3 greens and a blue so I decided that a room with a pair of blues and a pair of greens would be doable. Well, it was a bad pull, my pet only aggro'd 3 of the 4, so I was unable to heal my pet or take care of the one who was attacking me (and very shortly I had all 4 attacking me). So I died, deep down in the bowels of Blackburrow. Normally, this would not have been a difficult corpse recovery, but my machine locked up 4x on the way from Qeynos back to Blackburrow to do my corpse run (very frustrating after the 3rd time when you only get 10 min down the road and lock up). Finally I managed to get into Blackburrow, work my way down to the depths (in fact a train of 12 ran past me and just ignored me and my pet) and retrieve my corpse to a safe spot so I could loot it. Once the looting was done, I just gated back to Qeynos (rather than work my way back up through the tunnels).

I'll probably go back, just for the training aspect (it's a fairly easy dungeon) of learning how my pet will path in these situations and learning how to work in close quarters. In the meantime, I plan on hunting the plains of Karana (hoping to get those random drops for my spell components).

Vorish of Morell-Thule, High Elf Mage lvl 16

Labels: EverQuest

posted by Wuphon's at 11:35 PM

EverQuest: Hunting Wharf Rats on Kerra Island

DING! 15 DING! 16 - yeah, now I can get my level 16 spells! It wasn't the most exciting way to gain two levels, but hunting the wharf rats on Kerra's Island gives good experience and a faction increase with the local residents. Okay, make that a very tiny faction increase. Like one so small that it's barely noticeable. As in I went from the Kerras being 'indifferent' to me all the way up to (drum roll please)... 'indifferent' to me. Maybe that's because the wharf rat that drops the tooth for the quest only shows up every 5 to 10 minutes (I usually had time to kill the two weaker wharf rats before the big one would show, and would still have to sit around and wait). Once I reach 16, I had to move on because the weaker wharf rats were no longer giving experience (and there's nothing else in the zone that you can hunt without getting negative faction with the Kerras).

It's embarrasing how many times I died (twice) by the wharf rats (they hit hard and fast and chew through a level 12 pet pretty quick). On the plus side, I really improved my offense and defense skills by wading in to tank for my pet at times. In the last few days I've improved the following skills (my skill points are currently capped at 85 points for each skill, which is 'very good' in the EQ abilities page):

Abjuration: 59 to 76 - Not too worried about this either, it comes up when I cast shielding on myself.
Alteration: 21 to to 55 - Difficult skill to practice, I can either use Bind Affinity (big mana hit), or Renew Elements (refreshes my pet's hp). I'll need to specifically practice this by casting it on my pet more often (even when it's not needed).
Conjuration: 65 to 85 - This came up because I was using Shock of Blades (DD, 31-35 HP) so often pulling the wharf rats.
Mediate: 65 to 85 - Easy skill, just pull up the spell book and medidate to regain lost mana.
Channeling: 66 to 85 - This is the all-important 'concentration' skill that lets you keep casting even when a mob lands a hit on you.
Evocation: 65 to 73 - My new Shock of Flame (DD, 91-96HP) spell uses this, so this stat will come up quickly on it's own.

Defense: 45 to 60 - I need to really get this stat up, because it keeps me from getting hit, which means my spells won't get interrupted even if the mob aggros on me instead of my pet.
Offense: 34 to 42 - I also need to get this skill up for the cases where I'm backed against the wall.
2H Blunt: 18 to 20 - I haven't decided if this is the best weapon skill or not.

Sense Heading: 7 to 60 - Easy skill, just use the sense heading skill whenever possible (over and over and over). I work on it anytime I'm waiting for a ship to arrive at the dock, or while sitting on the ship, or while meditating.
Fishing: 3 to 5 - Eh, I may buy another fishing rod. It's not a real important skill for me (since I can summon food, water, daggers).
Bind Wound: 37 to 65 - Pretty good here too, since I can summon bandages for free, I do a lot of binding of wounds whenever our tank gets injured and then let the healer bring him back up the rest of the way.
Swimming: 30 to 33 - Need to work on this (maybe go back to Ak'Anon or Felwithe and swim in the ponds).

I may stick skill points into Defense, Offense, or my weapon skill (but it's going to cost a pretty platinum). I reckon that I spent around 70pp for 9 of the 12 level 16 spells (so I still have another 27pp to spend). That's a lot of platinum for a level 16 character who spent lvl 14 and lvl 15 hunting for experience instead of loot. I also need to figure out where I want to go hunting next...

Vorish of Morell-Thule, High Elf Mage lvl 16

Labels: EverQuest

posted by Wuphon's at 10:29 AM