Wednesday, October 31, 2001

EverQuest - Timorous Deep Corpse Run

Also known as 'the search for Qpdaj, the corpseless wonder', coming soon to a theatre near you...

Not knowing exactly how this was going to work, I logged in early (before 6pm) to try and line up a bard to help us with our quest. There were of course, no bards in the Butcherblock Mountain, so I went to Greater Faydark where they tend to hang out on the continent of Faydwer. As soon as I zoned in, I sent an auction message 'WTB services of a bard with locate corspe song for search in Timorous Deep - send tells to discuss terms'. I immediately got a response from a pair of players who were good friends (one was a bard) and were willing to travel to the dangerous oceans of Timorous Deep with us. After discussing things over when them, I found out that we had to wait for Qpdaj to login (he has to be in the group with us in order for the bard's locate corpse song to work), so I made arrangements to pay them 10pp each upon recovery and said that I'd send a tell when we were ready to leave. Unfortunately, both of them had to log off by 8pm, so by the time Qpdaj finally logged in, it was too late to enlist their help last night. (Pity, it would have made things easier.)

So I wandered around Greater Faydark, killing orcs, wandered into Crushbone and had some fun there while waiting for Qpdaj to show up. While in Crushbone, I ran into a bard named Foladil (Human, lvl 9, Hand of the Shadows guild) up on the orc trainer hill and I ended up enlisting his help. I should have screened him more closely (as you'll see in a bit), but it was time to start the run now that Qpdaj had logged in and Foladil seemed willing enough.

We left Crushbone a little after 8pm to head for Timorous Deep to try and locate the corpse (or find out the general area where the GMs had moved it too). After about 30 minutes, we arrived in Firiona Vie which is in the center of Timorous Deep. There we got off to bind ourselves before getting back on the boat. While we were waiting for the boat to come back around, we kept trying to get more information out of Foladil on how to go about the location and recovery effort (it seemed like we were having communication difficulties with him). Finally, about the point I was ready to disband him from the group and go find another bard, he suddenly said 'gotta go' and left. We're pretty sure he didn't speak very good english (which was causing all sorts of issues when you're on a technical task such as a corpse location quest).

There we were in Firiona Vie, getting 'lagged' to death (I don't know what it is about the zone, but my machine started swapping to the hard drive like mad and my frame rate went way down). Then Qpdaj plays trickster and casts a blindness spell on me and on top of all of the machine issues, I had to logout, reboot and come back in (so did he). It was looking like we'd have to either find a bard in the Firiona Vie or Timorous Deep zone or go all the way back to Greater Faydark to find one. (I was planning on traveling to the elven outpost in southeast Timorous Deep and trying to locate bards anywhere in the Timorous Deep zone.)

Suddenly, out of the blue, Qpdaj gets a tell from a high level player saying that he's found Qpdaj's corpse on the island by the chessboard. Apparently, the custom in the sea zones is to send tells to anyone who's body you find, on the off chance that they don't know where they died (not many landmarks out there). So now we knew where the GMs had moved the body to, and we quickly got an exact location from Mangea (Halfling, lvl 56 Templar). Quite a stroke of luck to get the information right when we needed it.

We arrived at the island with the elven outpost (loc -5000,-3900) around 10pm. After briefly discussing plans, Qpdaj decided to just swim for it (there are no small controllable boats like in the Ocean of Tears). I bid him farewell, warned him that anything he saw would likely eat him for a snack, and settled in to fish off of the dock. In fact, he's such a good swimmer he was to the island and back by 10:30pm. No problems, didn't see any creatures, we figured we'd be back in Kaladim by 11pm or so. A fairly quick, painless corpse recovery.

After a bit of a wait, the Maidens Voyage arrived, we boarded and then we were at the spot where the Butcherblock shuttles come out to meet the ship (just a touch before 11pm). I got turned around on the big ship, stepped off of the ramp in the wrong direction, and both of us fell into the ocean! We tried everything to either get back on board the big ship, or onto the little shuttles, but watched in horror as all of the ships sailed away without us!

I'm thinking, okay, now we're going to end up doing a double-corpse locate and recovery. I'm going to drown out here or get eaten and it's going to be a very difficult thing to petition the guides for the 2nd night in a row to get them to move our bodies to somewhere 'safe' again. I started swimming back to the elven outpost (from 4000,-6300 to -5000,-3900), while Qpdaj decided to swim towards the island in the northeast corner of the zone. His reasoning was that we couldn't swim forever so he wanted to get to dry land, mine was that the only place that I knew to get back on the ship was back at the elven outpost.

It took me about 25 minutes to swim back to the elven outpost (so we've proved that you can indeed swim forever), but I almost drowned along the way (hit the wrong key) so when I hit dry land at the outpost I was a very wet and annoyed elf (who was hoping to not have to swim at all that evening). On the funny side, my swimming skill got up to 66. Once I arrived, Qpdaj started swimming from the island in the northeast corner down to the elven outpost. He has a better swimming skill and made it in about 15 minutes.

We were a lot more careful on the trip back to Butcherblock (although I thought Qpdaj was going to fall in again with the running around he was doing). I bound myself to the dock area as soon as we landed, then went up to Kaladim to bind Qpdaj there around midnight. A very long 4 hour corpse run. After that we went our separate ways, I went back to Greater Faydark and Crushbone for a bit to do some shopping and hunting.

Once I got back into Crushbone, I walked around, ran into Felweniel and chatted with her for a bit. I also talked to a young level 9 mage who was frustrated with his character. I gave him the standard pep talk, pointed him at some web sites, expounded upon the advantages of being a mage (yes you can solo 2 blues and 2 greens at the same time), and hopefully either convinced him to stick with it or to give up and become a ranger. Another young player, Poizenivyy (lvl 9 ranger Wood Elf) came up and chatted with me as I was walking around doing the 'tourist mage' thing (I always have to explain that). She'd only been playing for a week and was nice enough to ask before inspecting my equipment. If she looks me up in a few days, I'll have some nice armor to give her (looted a set of AC4 gloves off of the orc trainer later on, plus I can make AC3 patchwork armor). I also camped the orc trainer hill long enough to get the Shiny Brass Shield to drop (AC10 +10 vs magic 8 lbs LORE lightsource) so I can give it to Qpdaj.

Vorish of Morell-Thule, High Elf Mage lvl 17

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 10:58 AM

Tuesday, October 30, 2001

EverQuest - The misadventures of Qpdaj

Monday night was interesting to say the least. I had been trying to convince my brother to bring his character west to the continent of Antonica (even to the west coast of Antonica), along with trying to convince Charcon to come west as well (he's currently hunting on the east coast of Antonica and doesn't like Oasis or N Ro much). So I just had conviced Qpdaj (my brother's character) to come (and he was bringing a friend or two) west, it was just a matter of how to get there and where to meet. Initially I was going to let him come and meet me in the Karanas because I still had a lot of business to attend to on the west coast of Antonica, but after chatting back and forth I had decided that I would travel to Rivervale (just east of the mountains in the center of Antonica) to meet him halfway and escort him back to the west coast. I figured if I got to Rivervale (which I've always wanted to visit) I would be close enough to go to Freeport if I was ahead of schedule.

I made it as far as N Karana, he never made it to Freeport. In the process of getting from Faydwer to Antonica, you have to take a boat that leaves from the docks on the northwest corner of the Butcherblock Mountains. Since Qpdaj and Felweniel were travelling together I figured they'd be okay, so I didn't bombard them with advice (nor did they ask) figuring they'd find their way (I had told them which zones they needed to cross). So I'm on my long run through W Karana when I get a tell from Qpdaj asking how to get back on the boat (he fell off). Now it's difficult to get back on the big boat if you fall off (in fact, I've never done it and don't know how you would do it), and you can't leave the zone without being on the boat, so he needed to swim for the island in the Ocean of Tears with a dock (there are two). At least, I thought he was in the Ocean of Tears (and so did he but since he has his anonymous flag turned on, I can't see what zone he's in when I do a '/who qpdaj all' command)...

So I'm getting locations from him, looking at the EQ map of Ocean of Tears and telling him to swim this way, that way, trying to figure out how he got where he was when he fell off (such an odd coordinate, not near the boat routes shown on the map). I thought we were doing okay when he hadn't gotten eaten by sharks after 30 minutes (and he seemed to be making progress), but then he ran into a pack of bandits on some boats and got killed. (Corpse recovery in the middle of an ocean is bad news if you don't have a location coordinate.) Fortunately, we had a location (he has a hot key setup that when he yells, it spits out a '/loc' command too) of his corpse so it would be fairly easy to find. I'm thinking, okay, this just went from bad (falling off of the boat) to worse (corpse recovery in a semi-dangerous zone in the middle of an ocean with no landmarks).

Fortunately, I had just reached N Karana where a Druid Ring is (a means by which druids can teleport their groups between Druid Rings) and arranged for a teleport to the West Commonlands (about 4 zones closer to Freeport than where I was) for 10pp. I made the trip, got a Spirit of the Wolf laid on me and ran through West Commandlands, East Commandlands, Freeport and just caught the boat leaving for Butcherblock with 10 seconds to spare (I didn't even have time to bind in Freeport, but I did bind in West Commonlands). In fact, if you ever want to be social, go hang around the druid ring in W Commandlands, there must have been 20-40 players sitting around auctioning, arranging transport.

Qpdaj and Felweniel were waiting on the dock when the boat arrived in Butcherblock and we stayed on for the return trip to Freeport via the Ocean of Tears (where we could get off at the island and use one of the little boats). It still didn't dawn on anyone that they had taken a different boat the first trip (Felweniel had just gated back home to Greater Faydark instead of trying to figure out how to get home). So we got out to the Ocean of Tears, got off at the first island, I made sure everyone had food and water, summoned a pet, buffed myself up for potential battle and we boarded a small boat to take us out to the coordinate where Qpdaj's corpse lay.

The trip was uneventful (thank goodness), but when we got to the spot and Qpdaj attempted to use his '/corpse' command he got the dreaded 'you have no corpses in this zone'. Which means either the server ate the corpse (unlikely) or he died in a different zone (where?). We somberly took the little boat back to the island with the dock and talked with some of the higher level players in the zone to find out what we should do next. It was quickly decided that he needed to petition a GM to give him a location of his corpse or assistance in retrieving it.

The GMs were pretty quick and we found out that his corpse was in Timorous Deep (a different ocean) and looking at the map things suddenly made a lot more sense coordinate wise (he had stumbled across the ship graveyard with bandits in the western part of the ocean). The GMs agreed to move his corpse to a 'safe spot' but wouldn't tell us where that spot was. So now we have to figure out how to retrieve his corpse.

1) Get a high level claric to 'Revive' Qpdaj. This is the best option, could cost us nothing, but has to be done within 3 game hours (and we've used up two in the Ocean of Tears attempt). The disadvantage is that Qpdaj will still need to travel back from whereever his corpse is (you revive standing where your corpse is located, hopefully someplace safe). This isn't a big deal as I can travel to Timorous Deep and escort him back to Faydwer. The good thing is that he camped in Ocean of Tears which is full of high level players so it will be easiest to find a cleric there.

2) Use a level 4+ bard or a level 1+ necromancer has a living compass to help us triangulate and locate his corpse in Timorous Deep (which is a huge zone). Time consuming, possibly difficult if his corpse is in a dangerous area, but I should be able to find a bard to help me do this. I have my pet and other skills at my disposal which makes this achievable.

3) Buy a coffin and find an upper level necromancer or shadow knight to do a summon corpse. Unfortunately, this is expensive (100-200pp) because of the coffin (which if their spell fails, we'd have to go buy another) that gets used up by the spell. Advantage is that we can pick the place where he gets summoned to.

We'll see what happens, it's a great mini-quest and we're learning all sorts of new things about how EQ works. I'll likely advance scout into Timorous Deep early to try and narrow down where his corpse is (what part of the zone).

Vorish of Morell-Thule, High Elf Mage lvl 17

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 1:21 PM

EverQuest - Hunting wisps for fun and profit

Monday was a sick day, so I got to play from early afternoon onward (after I felt a little better). Soon after I logged in and was hunting wisps for fun and profit in Qeynos Hills, I met up with Lucita (Wood Elf Rogue, lvl 13) who was selling +2 INT rings for 5pp (not a bad price and I had no rings yet). About 15 minutes later I hear her zone back in and shout about being almost mauled to death by a werewolf in W Karana. I was getting ready to zone myself, so I headed over her way to see if she needed anything. Sure enough, she was down to a few percentage points worth of health, so I did the summon bandages party trick and gave her 3 stacks worth. I tried to give them to her for free, but she traded me a 2nd +2 INT ring as a payment. We sat around and chatted for a while while she med'd up and talked about tradeskills (she's a master blacksmith and an aspiring tailor). So now I have yet another contact in Antonica and it's someone with a tradeskill to boot (hooray)! We added each other to our friends list and I'll have to look her up once I become a master brewer to trade services for those master blacksmithing skills.


Monday evening I spent working on my tailoring skill, killing cats and bears in W Karana to make patchwork boots and caps. Note to self, the aggro radius on a treant is huge, but he will only chase you if you're evil or if he sees you killing a bear. I thought I was safe because the treant had walked away, but it either turned around or wasn't as far away as I thought. As soon as I finished killing the bear, I heard it coming, ran perpendicular to it's path (since it seemed to be coming my way) and I swear it turned to follow me. Fortunately treants are slow so I was able to do one more lateral to confirm that it was indeed coming after me before I gated myself back to Qeynos. (Treants con red to me, but they are amiable so I don't want to get on their bad side.)

I also turned in Greater Lightstones in N Karana for enough experience to get me to level 17.

Vorish of Morell-Thule, High Elf Mage lvl 17

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 12:52 PM

EverQuest - Blackburrow and a trip to Halas

Sunday I was sick, so I didn't play much and wasn't in the mood for anything stressful when I did. I logged on and hunted in N Karana for a bit, then headed back to Qeynos to work on my first tradeskill (brewing) that I need to research a few of my spell components.

Sunday evening I went back to Blackburrow to work on faction and good will. In fact, I made another friend, Iyenu (Erudite Necromancer, lvl 12) by providing support, summoned bandages. Some of the trains were pretty bad on Sunday night, I had to zone once or twice to get away from the 8-12 angry gnolls who were left behind by someone who got chased across the zone boundary (without yelling TRAIN! to give us time to prepare to defend ourselves). Most trains in Blackburrow can be beaten down if everyone stays in the zone and stands their ground, but a pair of casters can't beat down a train of that size by themselves (we need melee classes to keep the gnolls busy while we burn them down). One more mid level character, or if 2 of the lower level characters had stood their ground we would have made it without zoning.

After that I walked up to Halas (way up north) to look for tradeskill supplies and to look around.

Vorish of Morell-Thule, High Elf Mage lvl 16

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 12:40 PM

EverQuest - Hunting in North Karana

Well, events in Norrath have been very busy these past few days, but I'll try to touch on the high points (and the low points). I spent most of the weekend in the Karanas hunting for either experience or for pelts (more on that later). On Saturday evening, the drunken newbie race from Qeynos to Freeport passed through the N Karana zone where I was hunting. About 12-15 level 1 characters, all staggering through the zone, attempting to make it to the bind point at the far side of each zone before getting killed by the wandering lions, grizzlies, griffons, bandits. I saw one name pop in and out of the zone at least twice. I wish I could have gone up to the bridge to E Karana to see the action, but I was a little too preoccupied with keeping myself alive to worry about any newbies.

The first group of the evening was Gladaiater (Dwarf Paladin lvl 16), but his hunting style was to run around and I got tired of constantly trying to follow him (casters need down time between battles and during hunting, so it's best if you pull to them). So I can't say I was sorry to see him go link dead (LD) and not come back (we had joined up with 2 others by that point). In fact he almost got me killed at least once.

Arenny (lvl 14 druid) joined the group a little later (right before Gladaiater went LD) as well as Kendawen (lvl 14 ranger) which made for a very good group (we hunted griffons). It was a very good group, tight, everyone knew what their jobs were and communication and chat was good. In fact, even after Kendawen left, Arenny and I finished out Saturday evening hunting in NK (about 2 hrs of hunting).

Vorish of Morell-Thule, High Elf Mage lvl 16

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 12:23 PM