Hunting Dragons, Surviving COVID

Well, I stayed home from work today because I felt pretty sick. I wasn't sure what I had, but I was pretty sure I picked up whatever-it-was from my boss last Thursday. He was hacking and sniffling, and my desk is pretty near his. Friday I went and had a COVID shot, not because I was afraid of getting COVID, but because my oncologist suggested that I do so because there was a study saying cancer patients going through immunotherapy increased the effectiveness of the immunotherapy by getting one. Long story short, the doctor today took a quick test and, sure enough, I have COVID. Gosh dang, me and my bad luck!

Fine, I took the opportunity of being home sick to go kill dragons in EverQuest Legends. First up was Nagafen. Naggy was always one of those dragons that I had always heard about, but never fought. Well, that all changed today.

I imagine old guilds in EverQuest used to surround this corpse for screenshots.

The great thing about EverQuest Legends is you talk to a "voidling," in an instance that would typically feature a raid and spawn a solo version (or group version) for you to take on. Once you defeat the end boss and exit your raid instance, that raid (on that difficulty setting) is on a cool down for 20 hours. You can then select the next higher difficulty and give it another go, which I did and won again. I even tried the next difficulty above THAT and won again . . . but it was close.  Close enough that I decided not to push my luck and try it one more time.

RIPOSTES OF A DRAGON MAW!

Instead, I decided to travel all the way across the whole gosh dark continent up to Permafrost and take on the second dragon I've been itching to fight. Lady Vox. Again, I don't think I ever fought Lady Vox when I was in EQ. No one was really interested in running those raids anymore by the time I hit raid levels, so . . . that was that.

Vox comes with a cleric add that you really need to take down first. Because of that, Lady Vox and her cleric friend just nuked the heck out of me and my warder, causing the fight to be a battle of attrition. I downed her once. I downed her on the next difficulty. On the third difficulty, she got me when she was a 6 percent life. She had won the battle of attrition, BUT . . . her cleric was dead. I buffed up and finished the job without her pesky cleric friend, and won by a mile . . . it just took a LONG time. (Thus are the natures of these battles of attrition. OUTLAST is the name of the game.)

Thanks, oversized loot pinata!

The loot from today was pretty interesting. On top of the four 100% 8-slot weight reduction bags, I got a Bladestopper shield, a Cloak of Flames, and a bunch of other random loot that didn't really apply to me. Pretty good upgrades, and it doesn't matter that I'm not using a shield in my kit because EverQuest Legends gives you two additional slots for "any" item. I threw that bad boy in there and didn't think twice.

The clicky effect doesn't require a peridot to cast and has a 10-minute cool down. I'll take a free 700 hit points every 10 minutes!

Happy Dueling

A Sunday Planer Mini-boss Buffet in EverQuest Legends

Today I went back to the Plane of Hate for a bit and proved to myself that I could solo the mini-bosses there, which felt amazing btw.  I was so worried from the experience I had trying to solo Coercer T'vala at level 47. It was good to go back and get some vengeance.

It just feels so wrong from this angle . . . doesn't it?

Also, it was pretty great to get a fancy new Bloodmoon scythe from the Lord of Ire. I swapped that into my Primary hand pretty quick and went about my business of killing Plane of Hate bosses. Lord of Ire, Coercer T'vala, Avatar of Abhorrence, Magi P'tasa, and the Ashbone Broodmaster all fell pretty easily. I mean, I had to play smart by swapping stances a few times and not just running in with a half full mana bar, but I was able to get the job done.

Get them teeth away from me! SMACK!

After that I thought, what the heck, let's go try the Plane of Sky? I had no idea what I was doing there and had to look up a guide. My experience with the Plane of Sky was pretty limited back in the day. In fact, I took one for the team and bound an alt of mine to some far island so that the guild could have access to getting people there for an epic quest . . . or something like that? My only instructions were, "Don't move."

So, after going through and soloing up through the third island boss and dying spectacularly to the fourth island boss (and his two lackies), I have a better idea of what's going on here. I mean, I got a couple cool drops from the bosses there, but no quest items that could have been turned in for uber loots. Apparently, I'm after some Azerack Skin from the Protector of the Sky on Island 2 so that I can make some cool Azerack Skin Wristwraps.

It puts the lotion on its skin.

Maybe after getting better equipment, I can head back and try to take down Gorgalosk?  I'm starting to see why Enchanters are next level when it comes to soloing in this game. If I could charm the add and sic it on Gorgalosk, I might just have a fighting chance! For now, it's dirt nap city.

Sleeping in the dirt in the Plane of Sky. Zzzzzzz.

I still need to try out Plane of Fear though! (Again, being an enchanter would be kind of cool because of those adds.)

Happy Dueling!

Don't be Hatin' -- I'm Max Level in Everquest Legends!

It was a fun day of EverQuest Legends!  About 30 minutes ago, I dinged 50, the current max level! 

WOOT!

Basically, I spent the whole day in The Plane of Hate. Unfortunately, I'm not strong enough to take down the raid bosses (um, I haven't tried again since hitting 50th level, but at level 47 and 48, it was not happening for me).

Who's the Champion now?

Instead, I started a solo instance of Hate with non-respawning enemies and just cleared out the whole gosh darn place, minus the bosses, about 3 times. It was all high level enemies that awarded great experience and once I figured out that you just don't fight in the hallways and instead pull into the rooms, everything went pretty smoothly.

Time for a little chopsticks!

What I remember of the Plane of Hate from back in the day was that I had a guildmate that took myself and two others there and it didn't end well. I never really went back. I love that they've made this version of the game where you're basically a super version of your old self. This is really a great re-done experience, and if you're an old EverQuest player that stopped playing EverQuest, but still have the great memories . . . yeah, this is the game for you.

They really loved the short bangs look when they were making these models back in 1999.

Once you hit 50th level, you are given a free class unlock token. I wasn't sure what to do with it at first, but I decided to unlock the mage class. It's one I never really played but seems very similar to Beastlord, just a magical elemental pet and instead of getting in the mob's face, you sit back and nuke from a distance. I don't know if I'll try playing up a mage, but it's the one I unlocked. /shrug.

I guess this unlock is free -- the rest require a quest in the Plane of Sky.

One thing is for sure, I'm overflowing with loot! Plane of Hate was very generous . . . the only bad thing here is that it was generous with loot that I can't really equip. Anyway, now that I've finished my goal, I suppose hitting ALL the planes (fear / sky) is the next objective! 

Happy Dueling!

EverQuest Legends -- Out of Kedge into Hate!

Sneaking in a post here at the 11th hour to say that . . . I MADE IT TO THE PLANES! Ding 46!

I spent a large part of yesterday and today fighting around in Kedge Keep (as foretold). Honestly, I really liked my time I spent there. It can be very dangerous in spots for me when I accidentally pulled 5 or more enemies at once. That didn't happen often though. 

Ol' Flotsam and Jetsam trying to take a bite out of Stingite

After a couple levels in Kedge, the entrance enemies started to con light blue or green, so they were easy to chew through, but didn't give a lot of experience. it took delving deeper into mermaid territory to really get the exp flowing again.

Gloomwater and Gloomstalker . . . why are mermaids so gloomy?

I made enemies with Estrella of Gloomwater herself while in Kedge Keep. Her lore entry in the Library of Erudin says she's, "the leader of those mermaids that went to serve the last kedge and watch over and guard him. An especially beautiful mermaid, her magic is just as strong. Her morose demeanor is punctuated with volatile anger at all land dwellers. It is said she took her title of Gloomwater to remember that she is a sole survivor of a magic plague that surface dwellers wrought, a plague of Bertoxxulous that ages ago spread like black ink through the pristine waters of her ancestral home, killing her people wherever the gloomy water reached. She bears little love for surface dwellers and harbors a special hatred of necromancers." BUT WHAT ABOUT FRIENDLY NECROMANCERS?!

Gimme that Lammie!

Loot in Kedge Keep was interesting. There's a lot of weapons that seemed suitable for lower levels. If I had "alts," I'd pass down a dozen or so random weapons that weren't really an upgrade for me. I did manage to score a Lamentation Blade, from Estrella, but I feel at my best when I'm slugging things with two hands like a proper Beastlord.

I think you may have a cavity on your back incisor . . . .

After hitting the magical level of 46 here in Kedge Keep, I decided it was time to take my first steps into the Plane of Hate, along with like 20 other people standing at the zone in. No worries! It's super easy to make your own private instance. DONE! 

Imagine all the people, living in the plane of hate!

I love the enemies here. It just feels like classic D&D with Rats, Ghouls, Specters, Zombies, and Mimics. Just your classic dungeon crawl fare. I was pretty happy with the random loot that seemed to be dropping like candy here as well. Trash mobs dropping good loot!? Who would have thunk it!? What is this, Diablo?

It's a very bite-y chest of loot!

I'll be spending a couple levels here for sure. Hopefully this weekend might be the first time I can actually group up with a few folks from the guild. I'd love to see what that's like now that I'm close to max level.

Happy Dueling!

Thotham's Journal #14 -- Continuing my Wednesday D&D Game

Every Wednesday I meet up with a group at a local game store and play a couple hours of D&D. I'll be reposting this over on my D&D character blog, but when I do I'll also be adding an AI generated story board that coincides with the text. I made a comic book out of the first three months of play, and I'm considering doing the same with this next three months' worth of play.

Anyway, since I need to put something up for Blaugust, I thought I'd just post my character journal up here as well!

When you play at this game store, it's gonna be a weird mix of pogs, minis, and lego heroes.

~~

Thotham's Journal #14 

The party pushed on into the next room, finding several cultists in the midst of a ritual. They were not pleased with our appearance and battle began immediately!

In the back of the room, the cultist leader was covered in a strong protective barrier. Toward the middle were his two attendants, also covered in a similar but less impressive barrier. In the front were five cultists wearing amulets that seemed to be feeding energy into the attendants.

Inrah was the first to attack, throwing an orb of lightning that lit up the darkened room, ending in a burst of electric death for the cultist it hit. I moved my telekinetic hand holding a torch into the center of the room, took steady aim, and threw a psi-knife into the skull of another cultist, breaking his mind and felling his body. Shadow slipped inside and downed yet another two cultists with a flurry of blows.

Zax strode forward challenging one of the attendants, but much to their surprise, a massive attack that seemed to connect had no effect whatsoever! Yuna, seeing the attendants couldn't be harmed, called down a sacred flame from the heavens and extinguished the foul soul of the final front-line cultist.

When this happened, the barrier protecting the attendants shattered as the amulets worn by the front-line fell to the floor with their now lifeless hosts. The leader in the back, continued muttering more strange, incomprehensible ritualistic language as his eyes glowed brighter. The attendants struck back, injuring Shadow.

We coordinated our attacks on the attendants and struck them down without many problems, except for Shadow managing to get his blade arms stuck in a wall. I've never seen our warforged look so confused!

When the cultists' high priest finished his ritual, his own barrier shattered as he screamed wickedly into our souls. He had been building a powerful soul crushing spell that Inrah and I took the full brunt of. The rest of the group felt it as well but had an easier time shrugging it off. Unfortunately for Inrah, the evil priest also targeted her with black tentacles that erupted from the ground and grappled her, tossing her back and forth, squeezing not only her body, but her mind as well.

To make matters worse, the Priest fragmented into four images that blinked in and out of existence randomly. While Shadow, Zax, and I focused on attacking these images, Yuna had her hands full casting a healing word on Inrah over and over. From my vantage point in the shadows, it was quite the sight! Yuna would heal Inrah. Inrah would be strangled and knocked unconscious by the tentacles. Yuna would again heal Inrah. Inrah would again be knocked unconscious. This happened several times until Zax finally was able to rush over to Inrah, grab her out of death's grip, and drag her to safety.

Eventually we shattered the images and took another agonizing death scream from the priest. (I can still hear his evil piercing my mind.) Cornered and outnumbered with his fragmenting spell broken, we ended his corrupt sermon -- my psi-blades, Shadow's blade arms, and Zax's holy smite. We had overcome the cultists in the sunken cave and found a treasure chest filled with gold for our troubles. 

There's nothing quite like 3,000 gold pieces and some patching up from Yuna to make you feel better . . . at least I hope that's the case for Inrah. She was near death more times in the span of a minute than most should ever experience in a lifetime.

~~ 

Fun fight!  

Happy Dueling!

Making your Pet use an Illusion in EverQuest Legends . . . and stuff

Tipa mentioned in her last blog post that I had turned my Beastlord warder into a Dark Elf through the magic of a Mask of the Deceiver, and so I thought I'd take a second to break down how you actually do that since it's not intuitive.

Get ready, this is crazy.

Step 1: Farm up a mask of the deceiver (or really, any clicky illusion item). It's not a hard farm and it drops pretty easily from the Ghoul Assassin in Lower Guk.

Step 2: Open up your inventory and click on the Storage tab.

Step 3: Click on the Activated Items subtab in your Storage tab.

Step 4: Drop your Mask of the Deceiver into the open area.

Step 5: Go back to your inventory tab and click on your Pet Inventory Tab.

Step 6: Use the drop-down menu there to select the "Guise of the Deceiver" illusion.

Step 7: Resummon your warder/pet. I tried zoning and it didn't work. You have to resummon that dude.

Step 8: Hand your warder/pet a really cool looking weapon because AWESOMENESS!

Give 'em a chop ZuuZuu!  (If only I could name my Warder and assign them to be female)

Honestly, I'm kind of disappointed my warder is a dude. Why can't my warder be female? I call shenanigans!

Anyway, I haven't had a ton of time to play EverQuest Legends lately, but I did farm a bit in Guk.  I've bound myself to the spot right outside the Frenzied Ghoul so I can kill him once in easy difficulty, change to a medium difficulty, port to that spot again and kill the (slightly more difficult) Frenzied Ghoul another time. Create my own private instance, park my pet, cast the Invisible to Undead spell and run back to him a THIRD time. That usually gives me three moonstone rings, but gosh dang it's nice to have three shots at the Flowing Black Silk Sash haste belt item in the span of 5 to 10 minutes.

I'm starting to wear out my welcome in Guk I think. I've killed their King several times and even secured his scalp. Side note, it's kind of hilarious you can wear his scalp and improve your faction with the living Guk people, but totally unnecessary since my reputation with the living Gukkians (as the chat window says) couldn't possibly get any better.

Death to the king of cute, undead frog people!

As I run into the instance, it's pretty easy to down the ritualist, the assassin, the shopkeeper, then drop down and kill the Frenzied Ghoul, the Sentinel Ghoul, the Cavelier Ghoul, the King Ghoul, the animated hand, the Executioner, the Sage, and then just call it a successful run. I should try to incorporate a couple of the minotaur bosses into that, but . . . like I said . . . I think I've worn out my welcome and it might be time to try something a little more difficult and rewarding.

You know, I'm actually thinking I may go hang out in Kedge Keep for a while! I love a good underwater maze.  I've got a stack of fish scales and some enduring breath, let's do this!

Happy Dueling!

Will EverQuest Legends Monetization Work?

I've been thinking about the monetization model of EverQuest Legends, and I think I may be starting to see it . . . but I'm not sure I fully understand it yet. I mean, they got my $20 to buy the game (for an indie company that would be enough), which came bundled with a month of subscription time, but what's going to keep me playing? The community? The game itself? Let me just ramble on a bit here . . . feel free to join in comments if you have thoughts.

Soloing red cons for tons of exp is a thing . . .

It's definitely a faster version of the old game that feels so much better than the original experience. (When I say old game, I'm talking early 2000's, not EQ1 circa 2026.) That said, I'm not even the most gamery of the gamers and I'm already level 41 with what . . . 10 days of play time? Part of me thinks that when I hit level 50 (max) and farm the plane of sky a couple times, that I might just feel "done," and that's fine, right? Just getting my $20 price of admission is enough, but what they really should be after with an MMO is that $10 monthly subscription fee. To do that, the post-launch release timeline should be pretty quick.

If you take a look at the roadmap it promises some fun stuff:

Behold the road to Christmas Joy!

I can get behind that. Basically, we get two to four months of this game while they add needed features like player housing and an auction house (no one is selling stuff in the /ooc of east commons tunnel just yet) and a few new things. Would it make me want to resub if my sub has lapsed and either of these features dropped? Hmmm, I'm not sure if that's worth it.

I mean, you can play through the game several times as the same character while leveling different classes, which also means you'll probably be buying extra inventory slots for various gear and playing styles. Maybe, strictly from a microtransaction experience, this is making more sense than I originally thought.

Not much in the shop just yet . . .

In addition, you have the whole "motes" system where you can level your spells and your gear to max them out. Mote hunting could take an enormous amount of time, and if they're smart, they'll sell mote bundles in the shop eventually, but for now . . . mote hunting and AA grinding might just keep it sticky enough to get you hooked -- although slightly boring I suppose? I guess if the company is good, I'd do mote farming.

Why beholdest thou the mote?

For the Fall Update, how much will Nektropos Castle cost for a DLC? Will it cost anything? What would you pay? From what I understand, Nektropos was an EverQuest 2 zone off of Nektulos Forest. I didn't play much EQ2, but my hope would be that it's a pretty exciting place to grind high level stuff (Actually, reading Chasing Dings, it was a early to mid 30's zone in EQ2 -- doesn't mean they have to do that in this game, although an intricate key quest to get in could be fun). Will it use EQ2 graphics? Will it be an homage done in EQ1 old school graphics? SO MANY QUESTIONS!

For the Winter Update, how much will Kunark cost for a DLC?  Will it make me want to relevel to 50 in the Kunark zones or will they bump levels to 60? Am I going to want to spend some time against the Wall of Bone and hunting against the wall in the Dreadlands? (I do miss those days with old online friends.)

Hottest High Elf Cleric circa 2002 award goes to . . .

It's all just really interesting to me. Is it the plan to keep you buying a new DLC every 3 months while hoping you keep subbed after you've crashed through content? 

As a side note I really hope they incorporate easy open raiding like Guild Wars 2! That's a very un-EQ thing, but also that's the best way to respect my time in an MMO and still give me the raiding experience. If I ever have to live by a DKP system again, I'M OUT!

Happy Dueling